


Drive it Like You Stole it

by boy-thighs (sop)



Category: Starfighter (Comic)
Genre: Abuse, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Blow Jobs, Character Study, Child Abuse, Explicit Language, M/M, Public Blow Jobs, Slice of Life, Slurs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-05
Updated: 2015-10-05
Packaged: 2018-04-25 00:22:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 30,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4939567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sop/pseuds/boy-thighs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When he’s free he can do anything. Be anything that he wants. This doesn’t mean he likes Bering or the goddamn Alliance. Or that he’s forgiven them for what they’ve fucking done. Not at all. Not one bit. So he can live with this, probably. Even if it means becoming someone—something—else. He’s lived his whole life in a state of constant flux, a transient mess of selfishness and regret. So what’s different now? Nothing. That’s what. There’s always a phantom hand yanking his chain, whether it’s greed or guilt he calls his master. He’ll bark, he’ll heel, he’ll fucking kill if he has to. Just to get what he wants and off this fucking rock.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drive it Like You Stole it

**Author's Note:**

  * For [riseelectric](https://archiveofourown.org/users/riseelectric/gifts).



**AGE: 21 // CODE VIOLATION: #487**  
  
  
  
7 gallons.  
  
That’s how much gas he’s wasted trying to shake off the damn cops.  
  
Brake. Slam on the clutch and drop down to second. Take the turn a bit too hard, lose ‘em three blocks back, and rev up to third. Hot rubber screeches against the asphalt while smoke builds under his tires, the acrid smell burning his nostrils. Manual’s a bitch, but at least he can drive it. The engine wheezes when he shifts up to fourth, chugging so hard it rattles the chassis. Christ, this thing’s a piece of shit. Why the fuck did he even swipe it in the first place? Oh, yeah, now he remembers. Because the keys were right _there_ , sitting out in the open, practically begging to get nabbed through the crack in the window. There’s a valuable lesson in all of this, somewhere: don’t leave your keys on the fucking seat of a car, especially at one a.m. on a Friday night. He’ll hammer out the poetics later, after he blows through this red light going 65 in a 40.  
  
Heavy rain pelts against the windshield with unsettling accuracy, thick globs of water obscuring his vision. These damn wipers can’t wipe for shit. They just slosh back and forth, arhythmically slow. He’ll have to drive by the seat of his pants and hope for the best. Which feels less like practice and more akin to principle by now, a personal creed etched in bloody ink on his bones. He’s always had a flare for the self-destructive and wild. Take a good look at his record. You’ll see. A lifetime of poor choices reduced to three thousand and six words, succinct and to the point, without all the messy bits in-between. The headlights flicker indecisively through the haze. _Jesus_ , now’s not the time for this bullshit! He grips the stick and shifts gears, resting the lever on 5th position. The beat-up Ford sputters and whines. He’s not gonna make it at this fucking rate.  
  
Red and blue lights bounce off the mirror. Shit. They caught up.  
  
He yanks the wheel left and drifts the sedan around a corner. A cop slams into the parked truck at the meter, glass shattering everywhere as car alarms go off. The truck’s totaled, metal crunched between the wall and Johnny Law, who might not be okay if the loud _boom_ soon after signifies anything. A spark flickers in his rear-view mirror. And now there are flames, violent and hungry, consuming every scrap of steel within a twenty foot radius. He’d feel sorry if he didn’t hate their guts so goddamn much.  
  
The cigarette between his fingers whittles down to the filter. He takes one last drag and flicks the butt out the window. They can tack littering onto his list of charges for all he cares. He really wants a second, maybe a third after that, but doesn’t reach for his pack. There’s no time for a light. Not now. Not when he’s running on empty and so close to the end.  
  
A bright, yellow light flashes above the speedometer. At least the fuel indicator on this piece of shit still works.  
  
Three minutes down a straightaway and he’s out of the city, dying neon behind him with a whole lot of nothing ahead. It’s dark, desolate, and utterly depressing. Mars isn’t pretty, like the brochures’d have you believe. It’s all rock and dirt and never-ending disappointment. He hates it here. _Christ_ he fucking hates it.  
  
The nearest settlement’s five hours north, too far for a clean getaway.  
  
He’s not aiming for that, though. Never was. Never had been.  
  
He’s just looking for an excuse to kill time (or himself).  
  
His last sliver of gas vanishes from the gauge and now there’s a loud, monotone beep joining the bright light, obnoxiously persistent, stubborn, and nagging. The car’s flat-lined. Dead. It’s a fucking miracle he’s still going.  
  
Since he’s done for anyway, he might as well enjoy his last moments.  
  
He blindly reaches for the cup holder, looking for his cigarettes from earlier. When he peeks inside, his mouth downturns. “You’ve gotta be fuckin’ kiddin’ me.” There’s only one left, half-wrinkled and bent. He grabs the last stick between two front teeth and crumples the empty box in his left fist. The window rolls down. Heavy spring rain splashes against his arm. It’s still pouring as he chucks his biodegradable garbage.  
  
“The fuck did I put it?”  
  
Oh. In his pocket. He fumbles for the lighter with one hand on the steering wheel and the other dug deep in his jacket. He flips open the zippo and lights up in the cabin. “Fuck.” A thin stream of smoke exhales through his nose, fogging the windshield. He can’t see shit, but he doesn’t really have to. He knows exactly where this road ends.  
  
It’s his front tire, not the engine, which betrays him.  
  
The Ford hits a huge rock and the left wheel pops, rubber exploding as air seeps out. The car slows down to a grind and he has to shift the gear down to 2nd to keep from spinning out. It doesn’t fucking matter, though. He’s out of options regardless.  
  
A hard tap against the trunk, another to the side, and he’s lurching forward against the steering wheel, gripping it for dear life. Fuck, these assholes just don’t let up.  
  
The second cop closest to his right swerves one last time against his back-most tire and that’s it. The car finally veers off course and he frantically slams on the break. Which was a huge fucking mistake because now the Ford’s rolling onto its side, tumbling over and over until it stops, upside-down. Broken glass cuts through his skin and tiny shards catch in his hair. He never heard the window shatter, but he can feel the wreckage all over. The blood not dripping onto the roof drains to his head, blurring his vision, and churning his stomach. His limbs sag limply to the ground, numb, heavy. He’s pretty sure he’s not dead. Yet. That’s only a matter of time.  
  
The seatbelt crushes his ribs, locked so tight it constricts his breathing. Bloody palms yank at the webbing, but it’s no use. He can’t rip the damn thing off. He’s fucking trapped inside.  
  
Shit. _Shit_. Okay. Calm down.  
  
There’s a knife somewhere. Where?!  
  
In his boot.  
  
Fuck!  
  
He reaches down toward his foot, but _Jesus Christ_ his joints hurt. Closer. A little more. Okay, there!  
  
The knife clatters against the roof. He flips open the blade and starts hacking away with uneven, frantic strokes. But the stupid belt’s too tight. He grips the material between his teeth and pulls the webbing away from his chest so he can’t slice himself. Now there’s more room to work with.  
  
“Yes!”  
  
It’s loose enough to rip. The fabric tears and now he’s only left with the belt.  
  
A second and third bright, yellow light illuminate the ground. He peeks over his shoulder. Shitshitshit. It’s the cops. Thunder claps overhead. Lightning cracks nearby. He’s really fucking fucked.  
  
Cut faster. _Harder_.  
  
_Don’t you dare fucking stop_.  
  
So what if he’s a goner? That doesn’t mean he can’t fight back. Tooth and nail till the end. That’s what she used to say. Bite the bastards bloody to prove that you’ve still got teeth.  
  
He grips the handle with his canines and claws away at the belt. Pull, pull it harder! Would you just fucking rip, goddamnit!  
  
The belt tears.  
  
He’s free—  
  
“Don’t move!”  
  
Momentarily.  
  
The cops yank him out of the wreckage by the hair. His stomach glides along twisted metal and sharp glass, slicing his skin wide open. A wet trail of blood stains the ground behind him, but the rain washes it all away in mere seconds, like it was never even there. One of the boys in blue kicks him square in the jaw. The knife between his teeth goes flying across the dirt, spinning, twirling, until it stops six feet away—tip pointed straight at him. He grunts in pain, blood trickling from his mouth. That’ll leave a bruise. Another to add to his collection.  
  
The other cop sits on his thighs and twists his wrists behind his back. Cold metal tightens around them. “You have the right to remain silent,” informs his not-so civil servant. The cop’s trying his hardest to remain professional, tone clipped between clenched teeth. “Anything you say or do can and _will_ be used against you in a court of law.”  
  
“Then for the record, I’d like to say that you weigh a fuckin’ ton,” he grunts with a smile. “Your Alliance masters feeding you well?”  
  
Another kick to the face. That one almost knocked out a tooth. The cuffs tighten painfully around his wrists.  
  
“Shut the hell up you tsygan trash!” barks the officer pointing a gun at his head. “It’s always your kind causing all these damn problems! Can’t you just do what you’re told!”  
  
He laughs, loud and clear, louder than the rain pouring down. “You think you’re better just because you bend over on command? I’ve got news for you buddy. You’re even lower than me.” He lifts his chin up, just high enough to meet the cop’s angry, cold stare, and he can tell, from the look in his eyes, that the man wants to shoot him dead. “You can pretend you’re one of them all day long. Believe they don’t think we’re the same. But at least I know who I am.”  
  
The cop pistol-whips him in the face so hard he cries out. His head swims, off-balance, and there’s blood in his eyes. He blinks, out of time (always _always_ out of time), and sees red.  
  
A faraway voice finishes reading his rights, barely audible over the static ringing in his ears. They haul him up under his arms and lug his bruised body to the closest car. His feet drag against the wet dirt. Two empty rows behind him. The Ford’s wipers stop wiping, and the monotone beep goes silent. The car’s battery is dead.  
  
And so is he.  
  
*  
  
They slap him in orange when his “hearing” is said and done. A farce, really. It’s all song and dance, pre-choreographed and routine. They don’t care about what’s fair, just what they can get away with. Not that he’s a saint or anything. He’s earned his stripes. They should’ve locked him up years ago if he’s being perfectly honest.  
  
New Volga Correctional facility reads the sign. He shares a cell with some guy who’s never seen the inside of a prison before. He’s freaking out, shaking all over, but it’s not all bad, really. A clean jumpsuit, fresh cuffs, and sterile bandages for his wounds. Better than what’s waiting for him back on the outside. The food’s okay, too. He can cook better, though. And no one’s tried to pick a fight with him. Yet. If they do, they’re in for a real treat because in here there’s no pussyfooting around. It’s all or nothing. Kill or be killed. Flash ‘em your pearly whites just before they die.  
  
He sprawls out on the stiff mattress of his bottom bunk and tries to get some shuteye. His block’s supposed to be working an early shift at the assembly line tomorrow and the last thing he needs is sleep deprivation.  
  
A loud bang jolts him awake.  
  
“Prisoner 275, wake up!”  
  
He bolts upright and swings his legs over the side of the bed. A correctional officer smacks his baton between the two metal bars of his cell. He’s got a scowl on his face and a loaded gun at his side. The guard clangs his baton one more time. “You heard me? I said get the fuck up!”  
  
So he does, reluctantly. The cold floor chills his toes. “I’m up. The fuck do you want?”  
  
“You’ve got a visitor here to see you.”  
  
“It’s not visiting hours.” Who the fuck would want to see him? He hasn’t got anyone left.  
  
The officer snorts and then frowns. “You think we don’t know that?! It’s some big shot from the Alliance. Asked to see you personally.”  
  
He chews on his busted lower lip. “I’ll pass. Tell ‘im I’m not interested,” he answers with a wave of his hand.  
  
“This isn’t optional. Now get your damn shoes on and move it! You’re wasting my fucking time!”  
  
Some top military brass, huh? Why the hell does a guy like that wanna see him? This is a prison, not a goddamn recruitment facility. His mind’s made up even if he’s got no choice in the matter. There’s nothing Mr. Big Shot can say to change it. But if he goes to see him, maybe they’ll put him on a later shift. Yeah. Okay. He’ll play along. For now.  
  
The walk to the visitor’s area is silent except for the rattling chains around his feet and hands.  
  
When they get to the dimly lit room, the officer shoves him in a folding chair and turns on the light. A man in uniform sits on the other side of the partitioned glass. He’s older, in his forties probably, and neatly groomed. He keeps his beard trimmed and clothing pressed. There’s not a hair on his head out of place. How disgusting.  
  
“Hello, son,” the man says with his hands folded in front of his face.  
  
He grunts in response.  
  
“I’m Commander Bering. William Bering, of the Alliance military. Pleasure to finally meet you.” Bering smiles the kind of smile a person flashes when he needs something. Manipulative. Mysterious. He doesn’t fucking trust it. “You’re…” Bering glances down at the file on the counter. “Lev Romanovich Malikov? Correct?”  
  
Lev avoids Bering’s eyes and nods. “Yeah. You want something?” The handcuffs are starting to dig into his wrists.  
  
Bering can tell and motions for the guard on the other side to come closer. “Officer, uncuff this man.”  
  
“Sir, he’s a high-level prisoner. I don’t think that’s—”  
  
“Just do it. Or should I tell your superiors that you refused my orders? You know who I am, don’t you?”  
  
The guard tenses. “O-of course, sir. Right away.” The keys jangle noisily as he unlocks Lev’s cuffs. Lev rubs the sore marks left on his skin. He’s got two symmetrical indentations where his shackles used to be.  
  
Bering smirks. “Does that feel better, son?”  
  
“Yeah,” Lev answers, voice low. “Thanks.” Doesn’t mean shit, though. Bering’s still a snake oil salesman in broad fucking daylight.  
  
“Good, good.” Bering scoots closer to the window and pulls something out of his pocket. He lays the newly proffered pack of cigarettes on the counter with a smile, like he’s waiting for a response. Lev doesn’t give him one. “I’m sure it’s been a while since your last smoke. Would you like one?”  
  
Lev swallows dryly. He does. He really fucking does. His hands shake at the sight of Bering’s Winstons. The white and blue box stares back at him, teasing. Just one. He’ll only smoke one. After that, he’ll be fine. His knee bounces uncontrollably against the counter. “Sure,” he chokes.  
  
Bering drops a stick into the box and slams the receptacle closed. The officer opens the drawer and hands Lev the lone cigarette along with Bering’s lighter. Lev all but shoves it in his mouth and immediately fumbles with the igniter. The flame catches and he sucks down a lungful of smoke, just holding it in for a few seconds before exhaling contentedly. Fuck, it’s been too long. His muscles unwind and Lev sighs, relaxed, nicotine happily buzzing his brain.  
  
“Leave us,” Bering says to the guard.  
  
“But, sir—”  
  
Bering glares at him through the window. “You’ve got cameras in here, don’t you?” He points toward the one right above them and another in the corner. “I’ll be fine. He won’t try anything. Now leave before I ask you a third time.”  
  
The guard shuffles out of the room, dazed and a little red in the face. Lev snorts in amusement. First time he’s ever seen that. Maybe Bering’s not a complete tool even if he does work for the Federated Alliance. Lev still doesn’t trust him, but he doesn’t have to. He’s no spring chicken at this game.  
  
Bering leans a bit closer and Lev notes the wrinkles around his mouth, deep and well-worn. “Now that we’re alone, I’d like to discuss something with you, Lev. Is it all right if I call you that? Lev?”  
  
“It’s my name, isn’t it?” Lev says. “Call me whatever the fuck you want if you’re gonna give me another.” He gestures toward the pack of smokes with his half-burnt cigarette.  
  
Bering smirks, catching on. The uniform’s not the only one who can barter. “Sure thing, son.” He drops another cigarette into the box and slams it Lev’s way. Lev finishes the one between his fingers, stubs it out on the counter, and immediately lights his second. Free smokes and no early morning shift. He’s starting to like this whole visitor thing. “All right, now I think it’s time we got down to business,” Bering explains just as Lev takes another drag.  
  
“What kind of business?” This is the part he hasn’t quite figured out. What the fuck does Bering _want_? He’s not a soldier, not a goddamn hero either. Why the fuck would someone like Bering want him in the Alliance? There’s a catch somewhere, but Lev can’t quite see it.  
  
“I’ll cut to the chase.” The commander straightens his back and leans forward on his elbows, meeting Lev’s eyes. “I want you to enlist in the Federated Alliance, as a fighter. You’ll be working on a special assignment I’m personally overseeing. Your criminal record will be wiped and you can start over, fresh. Just like that. All I ask is that you help me and my associate out on this little project. How’s that sound?”  
  
It sounds awful. Like an obvious fucking trap. There’s no way Bering’s going to let him walk free afterwards. No fucking way. But he plays dumb for now and doesn’t dig any deeper. “Sounds all right. What’s this project you want me on? Got any details?”  
  
“None that I can tell you right now. If we were somewhere a little more private, I’d give you the basic run down.” He wouldn’t. “But considering our circumstances, well, you understand.” Bering drops his hands and smiles. “What I can tell you is that you’ll live quite comfortably for the rest of your life. Finish this little project and you’ll be on a one-way shuttle ride to anywhere you want, son.” And here comes the sales pitch. “Sure beats staying in here for another—what was it?” Bering glances at Lev’s file. “Two hundred and twenty-five years? The answer’s pretty obvious.”  
  
Lev hesitates. Bering’s right. No matter how much he fucking hates the Alliance and everything it stands for, this is his only way out. And for whatever batshit reason, Bering wants _him_ of all people working on some top-secret bullshit he coudln’t be fucked to care about. Save the universe? Ensure peace for mankind? The fuck does that have to do with him?! He’d stopped caring about other people a long, long time ago. All that matters now is what is and will be his. So yeah, the answer’s obvious, practically blaring through the speakers. He’d be no better than the fucking cunts who put him here if he takes Bering up on his offer. A wild dog, freshly collared, on a very short leash. Sit. Roll over. Kill some Colterons. Good boy! And Bering knows this. He fucking _knows_. He’s got him right by the fucking balls and he _knows_.  
  
Lev taps the building ash to the floor.  
  
When he’s free he can do anything. Be anything that he wants. This doesn’t mean he likes Bering or the goddamn Alliance. Or that he’s forgiven them for what they’ve fucking done. Not at all. Not one bit. So he can live with this, probably. Even if it means becoming someone—something—else. He’s lived his whole life in a state of constant flux, a transient mess of selfishness and regret. So what’s different now? Nothing. That’s what. There’s always a phantom hand yanking his chain, whether it’s greed or guilt he calls his master. He’ll bark, he’ll heel, he’ll fucking kill if he has to. Just to get what he wants and off this fucking rock.  
  
Lev leans forward, cigarette poised between his lips, and he exhales slowly, smoke drifting through the small holes in the glass. It wafts towards Bering’s face, but he seems unfazed. In fact, he smiles, because he knows. He fucking _knows_.  
  
There’s just one question left:  
  
“Where do I sign?”  
  
  
  
**AGE: 20 // CODE VIOLATION: #602**  
  
  
  
“You got the wire cutters?”  
  
“Yeah, in my pack.”  
  
“Well take ‘em out already! _Jesus_ , it’s cold!”  
  
Lev digs inside his bag and produces the cutters in question. “Here,” he says, handing them over. “Knock yourself out.”  
  
A woman snatches the heavy tool from his hands. “Thank you,” she singsongs and cuts through the gate. Or tries to.  
  
“You need help with that, Anna?” a taller, bulkier man sneers. He’s only wearing a turtleneck in this fucking weather. Maybe his muscle mass keeps him from freezing. That or he’s drunk off his ass. Which wouldn’t surprise Lev one bit.  
  
“Oh can it, Oleg,” Anna snaps. She manages to get through another section of fence. “You’re the one who taught me how to use this thing in the first place. Not like it’s all that hard anyway. It’s as easy as clipping toe nails.” She grunts through another snip. A chunk of metal snaps off.  
  
“Remind me never to let you anywhere near my feet,” says the man to her right.  
  
Oleg swings a monstrous arm around his shoulders. “Considering you always wear those fucking boots, I don’t think you have to worry about that too much, Mikhail.” Oleg pinches the bridge of his own nose for emphasis.  
  
Mikhail flushes red from embarrassment or maybe anger. Or he’s just really fucking cold. “Well excuse me for not expanding my wardrobe! What, with all the money I’m raking in working at the port!”  
  
“Not even with your little business on the side?” Oleg pesters, playfully jabbing Mikhail’s side.  
  
“You know I barely cover the cost,” Mikhail grumbles.  
  
Oleg laughs, a little too loud, and Anna shushes him. They’re supposed to be stealthy right now, goddamnit! “I’m just busting your balls. We all know you’re dirt poor. Like the rest of us.”  
  
“Well, hopefully after this we’ll all be a little less destitute,” Anna comments. She’s almost done with the hole.  
  
Lev folds his arms across his chest. His arms are shivering. “Unless we find nothing.”  
  
“Oh, we’ll definitely find something.”  
  
“How can you be sure?”  
  
Anna finishes cutting the gate and now there’s a normal, human-sized hole between them and the building on the other side. “Woman’s intuition.” She smiles, proud of her handiwork, even if it is a little dodgy.  
  
Mikhail groans. “That’s reassuring.”  
  
Anna tosses Lev the heavy wire cutters and he nearly drops them on the ground. “Just trust me, okay?” she whispers, heading through the hole. “When have I ever steered us wrong?”  
  
Oleg snorts. “That time you told us to ‘Just sneak past the cop! It’ll be fine!’ It fucking wasn’t.”  
  
“Or that time you literally went down the wrong street and kept on going like we couldn’t tell,” Mikhail chimes in.  
  
Lev chuckles. “Or that time—”  
  
“Okay, I get it!” Anna snaps in the quietest voice she can manage. “Just trust me this time, okay? I’ve got a good feeling it’ll all work out.”  
  
He does. With his life, and more. Lev’s known Anna for years and he trusts her completely. She’s always the one to dive headfirst into something, impulsive and brash, not one for permission or questions beforehand. Like that first time they’d met eight years ago. She’d been standing in the street with one hand on her hip and the other tangled in her hair, yelling at him to quit playing grown-up when he could barely consider himself a fucking man. Not much has changed since then. Her hair’s still black and waist-length like always. But she’s older now, a little wiser, and mature beyond her years. Well. Sometimes. She’s a firecracker and won’t stop drinking till she pukes, but that’s what he loves about her most. Anna does what she wants, when she wants, _how_ she wants to, consequences be damned. Maybe that’s what made him trip head over heels for the only person he can safely call home.  
  
“You guys coming or what?” Anna calls from halfway across the iced-over lawn. Winters on Mars borderline unbearable. Her boots crunch the stiff grass.  
  
Oleg sighs in defeat because he knows better than to argue. “Hold your horses! Not all of us are young!”  
  
Oleg’s pushing thirty and much older than the rest of them, but he acts like a goddamn kid most days. A kid with guns bigger than most peoples’ heads. He lifts crates at the warehouse by day and brews hooch by night, his own special batch he pawns off to the locals at their favorite watering hole by the docks. He’s tall, six foot plus, and tanned all over from the hot, Martian sun. Tribal tattoos decorate his back, but Lev’s never seen just how far they go down. A bottle blonde and intimidating, he’s surprisingly the most levelheaded. Maybe that’s got something to do with age. Or maybe he’s just too damn tired to give a shit. Either way, Lev’s always looked up to him as the older brother he’d never had. Simultaneously the best and worst influence of his whole fucking life.  
  
“You don’t even know what a horse looks like,” Mikhail grumbles as he follows suit, crouching into the more appropriately dubbed Anna-sized hole. She could’ve made it a bit bigger, honestly.  
  
Mikhail’s the closest in age to Lev, three years older versus Anna’s four and Oleg’s eight. He’s the undisputed brains in their merry band of misfits and usually comes up with some last-minute plan that ends up saving the day. He’s slightly taller than Lev by three whole inches, and he’s got a mop of black hair that just won’t stay straight. People confuse him for Anna’s brother almost daily and it’s not hard to see why. They’re both exceptionally pale, blue-eyed, and sharp-boned. Lev had almost thought the same thing when he’d first met him eight years ago, but their personalities couldn’t be more polar opposite. Mikhail’s quiet, always thinking, and far less emotional. Pragmatic and charming, he can talk his way out of anything. There’s a certain air about him that attracts both men and women, but Lev’s never noticed which gender he prefers. He works at the port categorizing inventory for incoming ships, but runs an underground drug trade on the side. Morphine for information, atropine for a secret he’d overhead in the office. It’s amazing what you can learn just from hanging around drunk pilots.  
  
“Lev, you gonna stand there all night or should we go on without you?!” Anna says when he doesn’t move for three minutes.  
  
He snaps out of his stupor and blinks the snowflakes away. “Yeah, yeah!” he hisses back.  
  
They creep along the side of the building until Lev spots a door practically begging to get picked. The camera by the corner is easy enough to take down. Mikhail aims a well-timed rock at the lens when it’s faced away from their position and he cracks the lens, interrupting its patrol. Lev makes quick work of the lock with two wires and experience. Oleg ruffles his hair for a job well done when the door creaks open after five minutes of jimmying.  
  
Once inside, they’re on autopilot, following Anna’s master plan.  
  
“Okay, you guys know what to do,” she explains, dropping her bag near the desk. The reception’s empty and eerily silent. “If you need me, I’ll be busy snooping through the Alliance’s dirty laundry.”  
  
Mikhail takes his position near the front doors, hiding in the corner so he can see the whole road. “Watch the snow fall while standing next to a fake, plastic plant. Got it.”  
  
Oleg smirks and claps Lev hard on the shoulder. “Come on, Lyovushka, let’s tear this place up.”  
  
Lev digs into his bag and procures two spray cans and a bat. Oleg takes the wooden slugger while Lev shakes the paint.  
  
“You know, we’ll be in some epically deep shit if we get caught in their recruitment center,” Mikhail notes as he peers over a bush.  
  
Lev slips on his painter’s mask and spots a poster he fucking hates. Two colonist boys smiling with their arms stretched wide, inviting him and anyone else to join now and become a fighter! You’d have to be dumb or desperate to consider that offer, which, unfortunately, a lot of people are. Sometimes the Alliance’s the only thing keeping you from going hungry. Sometimes you just gotta take it like a bitch to make ends meet. Lev sneers at their faces and sprays them black. “Relax, Mikhail. You’ll be home in time for re-runs,” he mumbles through his mask. “You’re thinking too much.”  
  
Anna snorts. “That’s what he does best.”  
  
Oleg winds up his bat and swings at a vase. The porcelain shatters, water and artificial flowers spilling all over the steam-cleaned carpet. “You know, I should’ve been a professional baseball player instead of a crate packer. Did you guys see that swing?”  
  
“For what team?” Lev laughs. “The Deadbeat Martians? You know we don’t have that shit here.”  
  
“Yeah, well, it’s nice to dream every once and a while!” Oleg winds up again and _smash_ , right into a lamp. “They’ve got that on Earth right? They’ve got to. All those fancy, rich folks willing to drop credits on the chance to watch other people work. The dream, baby.” He strikes again and breaks an important looking painting. “Home run!”  
  
Lev shakes the can and sprays something offensive about someone’s mother in Cyrillic all over the walls. “Find what you’re looking for, Anna?”  
  
She shakes her head and starts browsing another file. “Not yet. But I’m close. I can feel it. There’s definitely _something_ here we can use.”  
  
“Just don’t take too much longer, okay?” Mikhail chirps. “I’m getting a bad feeling about this.”  
  
“You always have a bad feeling, ya big baby.” Lev brings his attention to a sorely neglected couch that desperately needs a few profanities spray-painted across the cushions.  
  
“Yeah, well this time I’m serious!”  
  
Oleg rolls his eyes. “That’s what you said last time and the only thing unexpected was your sudden IBS. So quit bitchin’ and keep snitchin’!”  
  
They spend another five minutes laying waste to the room before Anna perks up with excitement. She’s found something incriminating in the transmission logs. “They’ve been keeping us down to make us desperate,” she paraphrases. “Those unexplained deaths weren’t accidents at all. They’ve been picking people off who keep asking too many questions. And then this—here!” Lev watches her scroll down to another message. “Bribing people to keep quiet about what they say or saw. No wonder their fucking tactics work like a charm. We’re all too poor to do anything else.”  
  
Mikhail swallows in disbelief. “Manufacture an entire industry around our suffering, huh? Why get the pretty test tubers dirty when they can just use us as cannon fodder? It’s actually disgustingly brilliant.”  
  
Oleg scowls and swears heatedly in Russian.  
  
Lev’s fingers twitch. He really needs a fucking smoke.  
  
“Make us breed like rabbits and then shove our kids in cockpits,” Anna whispers, a little stunned. “Jesus Christ. I’m copying this.”  
  
“Well you better do it fast,” Mikhail warns. Red and blue lights flicker in the distance. “We’ve got company.”  
  
Lev panics and chucks his spray cans into the bag. “How?! No one saw us!”  
  
“Silent alarm. Probably. Should’ve realized it sooner. I knew there was something off.”  
  
Oleg swings the bat over his shoulder. “We don’t have time to think about it now. Let’s get the hell out of here before our ‘friends’ crash the party.”  
  
“Not yet!” Anna protests. “I haven’t finished copying the data.” Her illegal data chip flickers impatiently. She’d snagged it from someone shady after a game of drunken pool. It’s a nifty little tool that can download information from any terminal, computer, or pad. Highly contraband, but oh so useful.  
  
“Forget the fucking data!” Lev shouts. “We gotta go!”  
  
He grabs her wrist, but Anna yanks away from his grasp. And it’s now, with the cops closing in on them, that Lev remembers why, sometimes, he hates her fucking guts. “We’re not leaving empty handed. Just give me a few more seconds. Or go on without me.”  
  
“You know that’s not an option,” Lev counters immediately. He can’t. He won’t. She’s fucking nuts, but he’d never abandon her.  
  
“Then I guess you’ll have to stay.” Anna smiles weakly and pats Lev’s head affectionately. “Sorry, pussycat. I’m always making you wait.” He both hates and loves that old nickname, now more than ever.  
  
Ten seconds pass.  
  
“Anna!” Mikhail warns, tone rising in volume as the sirens get louder.  
  
She drums her fingers nervously against the counter. The progress bar ticks slowly. “Just thirty more seconds!”  
  
“We’ll be lucky if we have twenty!”  
  
75%  
  
80…  
  
85…  
  
“ANNA, GODDAMNIT!” The cops turn left onto their street. They’re two minutes out at most.  
  
**DOWNLOAD COMPLETE**  
  
“Got it!” She rips off the chip and shoves it inside her coat pocket.  
  
They scramble for the back entrance just as the cops pull into the lot, bullhorns blaring: _This is the police! Put your hands up!_ It’s a mad dash to the fence, and they’re halfway to it when a group of police officers sprint toward the side of the building. Anna squeezes through first and yanks them by their coats until everyone’s out. Mikhail’s car is parked two blocks down and with how fast they’re running they might get there in time.  
  
If the cops play fair.  
  
Which they don’t.  
  
A single gunshot rings out into the night. Anna crumples to the ground, clutching her leg. “Shit!” A bullet’s lodged itself in her left thigh. There’s blood seeping out from the wound onto the cold, white snow. She stumbles on her feet only to fall back down, hobbling slowly while she grapples with thin fingers for the back of Lev’s jacket.  
  
“Anna!” He shouldn’t say her name. Shouldn’t even fucking mention it when the cops are so close, but Lev can’t help himself. His thought process boils down to one constant, consuming urge: turn back. Lev 180’s on the spot and rushes to Anna’s side. She’s grunting in pain and paler than a ghost. It’s not the first time she’s bit the wrong end of a bullet, but this time has got to be the fucking worst. Lev clamps his hand down on her wound to try and stem the gushing blood. Shit, there’s so much. So fucking much. He wraps his arm around her waist and hauls her close to his side. “Come on,” he grunts, shouldering her weight. “Move your ass.”  
  
Anna laughs, but the sound of it churns his stomach with something like nausea. “Look at you playing hero, coming to rescue the damsel in distress. Doesn’t suit you very well.” She gasps when a sharp pain shoots up her leg.  
  
Lev smirks despite the fucking rage boiling beneath his skin. “Half-dead’s not exactly a great look for you, either, princess.”  
  
Anna groans, half in disgust, half in agony. “Who said anything about dying? And don’t call me that, please. You know I hate that stupid name.”  
  
They stumble through a big patch of snow. Anna’s feet drag limply through the slosh and Lev has to carry her over most of it. The cops are closing in, nearly caught up. Lev can’t see where Mikhail and Oleg ran off to, but he hopes that wherever they are they’re safer than he’s about to be. “I’ll stop calling you that when you stop calling me a fucking pussy.”  
  
“Pussy _cat_ ,” she corrects. “Cuz you look like one when you’re grumpy. Like right now.”  
  
An officer yells at them to stop or else they’ll fire again. Lev freezes in place, heart clenching. “Gee, I wonder why I’m in such a terrible fucking mood.”  
  
“You’re always in a terrible fucking mood.” Four flashlights shine into their eyes. He can see that her green pants are now stained a dark red.  
  
“Bitch,” he whispers, but really means _don’t leave me_.  
  
“Put your hands in the air!” a cop yells, gun pointed straight at them. The other three behind him do the same, not taking any chances.  
  
Anna collapses to the ground, tired. “Brat,” she chuckles with the same sentimentality.  
  
The cops are on them in less than ten seconds, slapping handcuffs on their wrists. Lev twists in defiance, squirming around on the ground to keep his eyes on Anna. He can’t do jack shit now with his face planted in the snow and his arms tied up like a hog’s, but he doesn’t fucking care and wants to see with his own damn eyes what’s going on. They jostle her around a bit too roughly for someone who’s just been shot and she writhes in pain, gritting her teeth to keep from screaming. She’d rather die than let them know they’ve worn her down.  
  
They flip her over for a quick pat down and the data chip in her pocket falls out, onto the snow. One of the officers notices and gingerly picks up the small device, squinting in confusion. “Take a look at this,” he says, elbowing his partner. He turns the chip over in his palm.  
  
“Looks contraband to me,” comments the other cop, pinching the chip between his fingers for a closer look. He pockets the device and grabs Anna by the arm. “You’re coming with us. Ivan, get the other one.”  
  
Lev panics. “Let her go!” he yells when they start to haul Anna away. The cop opens the door and throws her in the back, not caring about the mess she’s making all over the seat.  
  
“Shut up,” says the officer gripping his wrists. He shoves Lev’s face back down into the snow. Lev breathes in the smell of cold dirt and blood.  
  
Anna twists on the seat and pokes her head out just far enough so that he can read her chapped lips as she whispers his name. The car door slams shut, Anna’s pale face gone, and Lev screams, loud and feral. He bucks against the officer, kicking off of his haunches wildly like a restrained animal.  
  
“Quit squirming around!” the officer snaps. He whips out his taser and shocks Lev’s side.  
  
Lev goes limp, body rigid as the electricity courses through him. He growls low in the back of his throat and struggles, but it’s no good. He’s fucked. The cop hauls him onto his feet and throws him in the back of the other car parked a few feet away. Another day, another charge, another pair of cuffs around his wrists. Only this time he’s not alone, and someone else’s paid the price.  
  
*  
  
They let him go after he’s finished doing a bit of “community service”. Four weeks picking up other peoples’ shit off the highway (or what they consider a highway here—it’s just one long, fucking road that takes you to another shitty little town five hours away) while some two-bit rent-a-cops had called him every imaginable slur under the cold, Martian sun. The snow hasn’t let up. It’s still falling by the bucket-load and Lev’s completely frozen by the time he’s back inside, changing into his old, dirty clothes he’d walked in with before coming to the station. His turtleneck reeks, there’s a hole in his coat pocket, and his pants are stiff and wet. Looking in the mirror, he’s covered in bruises and cuts, head to toe. The officers sneer as he leaves, another fucking mark on his record. But he doesn’t give a shit. He’ll wear every offense like a badge of fucking honor if it’ll piss ‘em the hell off.  
  
The only thing he cares about right now is finding Anna.  
  
He hasn’t seen her in a month.  
  
And the knot twisting in his gut tells him that something’s really fucking wrong.  
  
Oleg and Mikhail find him two hours later, half past two a.m., when he’s outside his shitty rundown apartment, keys jangling in his hands. Lev barely has time to open the door before Oleg’s pulling him in for a giant bear hug, practically lifting Lev off the ground until his feet can’t touch the floor.  
  
“Lyovushka!” Oleg exclaims through a choked sob. He’s trying not to cry like a little bitch, but Lev lets it slide this time. “You’re alive!”  
  
Lev snorts and pounds his fist against Oleg’s big, beefy arm. He can’t breathe, damnit! “Of course I’m alive! Get off of me!”  
  
Oleg lets go and Lev stumbles back against the wall, winded. “We weren’t sure if those pigs had gotten you, too.”  
  
Lev freezes. “Whadda ya mean ‘gotten me too’?” he asks very slowly. The fuck is Oleg talking about?  
  
Mikhail clears his throat and he’s wearing the saddest fucking look Lev’s ever seen on his face. His lip twitches periodically, like he’s almost ready to spill the beans, but can’t for whatever stupid reason. Mikhail won’t look him straight in the eye, either. “I think we should go get a few drinks before we bring that up.”  
  
Oleg nods in agreement, staring down at his shoes. “Yeah. It’ll be easier when I’m drunk.”  
  
The bar they frequent isn’t any bigger than a hole in the wall. A small gathering place people meet at to drink and forget. Lev comes here all the time with Oleg, Mikhail, and Anna, usually to get plastered after another successful night of rampant delinquency, but this time no one’s laughing and there sure as hell aren’t going to be any drunken three a.m. toasts. Lev almost chokes on his beer when Mikhail breaks the news to him.  
  
“She’s dead.”  
  
His nails dig into the cheap, wooden table. “What the fuck do you mean she’s dead?!” he shouts so loud a few patrons nearby turn their heads in disgust. He doesn’t care. He doesn’t fucking care what they think or why they’re looking. Mikhail’s trying to tell him that Anna’s _dead_ and that this isn’t some sick, twisted joke.  
  
Mikhail leans back in his seat, shoulders slumped, and there’s a wistful look in his eye, like he’s remembering all the good times they’ve shared in the span of three seconds before replying, “they found her body a few weeks ago. She’d apparently strangled herself with a bedsheet. Suicide.”  
  
Oleg wipes his nose. “That’s fucking bullshit!” he seethes. “She’d never do that!”  
  
“Right,” Mikhail agrees. “So we think they—”  
  
“—killed her.” Lev exhales the breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding and he tries to process the information in his slightly tipsy mind. They’d killed Anna. Those disgusting pieces of subhuman shit had choked her to death, made it look like suicide, and then left her to rot in her cell. He wants to scream, wants to slam his fists on the table like a fucking animal and roar so loud everyone in this stupid bar’ll look right at him, see the misery he’s struggling to deal with all over his face. He doesn’t, though. He just grabs his mug, opens wide, and chugs the rest of his beer down in five gulps, hoping the alcohol will help numb the pain. Lev doesn’t want to fucking feel a thing.  
  
“Considering what she was carrying, it wouldn’t be too ridiculous a thought,” Mikhail finishes. “If they saw what she had, I wouldn’t be surprised if they’d…you know…” He grabs his own mug and starts drinking, too.  
  
Oleg rubs his tired face against his palms, still in shock. “I can’t believe that she’s gone.”  
  
Lev can’t either. It doesn’t feel real. This is all a nightmare he’s dreaming in his bed right now and in a few minutes his alarm’ll go off and Anna’ll be knocking on his door at seven a.m. sharp, telling him to get the fuck out of bed or they’re going to be late for work. Again. But the longer Lev sits on his barstool at _Ilyich’s_ the further away that dream slips until he’s left with nothing but the harsh, brutal reality that she’s never coming back. A sob wells up in the back of his throat, but he doesn’t cry. He can’t. Lev doesn’t know why.  
  
“Why didn’t they kill me?” Lev asks after a moment, composing himself. His hands shake uncontrollably under the table. He doesn’t want them to fucking see.  
  
Mikhail bites his lip. “I don’t know. Maybe she was a warning. They beat you up pretty good.”  
  
Lev touches the bruise above his right eyebrow and winces from the pain. He’s still covered in them all over, a few on his ribs and plenty peppered along his thighs. A huge welt sits just above his shoulder blade. A cop had come up with some half-assed, bullshit reason why he’d needed a good baton-beating and went to town with the stick while his partner was off pissing in the woods. Lev rolls his sore shoulder and exhales sharply. It fucking hurts. Almost as much as the hole in his heart.  
  
“Yeah, they did,” he answers after a beat.  
  
“We should hit ‘em while they’re still high on their horses,” Oleg announces just as the waitress brings them another round. “Make ‘em pay for what they did to Anna.” He starts chugging his sixth beer and doesn’t stop till he hits rock bottom.  
  
This is Mikhail’s fourth beer and he’s drunk enough to agree with Oleg’s suicidal plan. “But how?” he muses, tapping his chin.  
  
“We go back. Tomorrow night. Burn the whole fucking place down and let them stew on that.”  
  
Mikhail thinks it over and then smiles. “They’ll be pretty pissed.”  
  
Oleg laughs loudly. “They’ll be so fucking mad they won’t even know what to do with themselves!”  
  
“All right! Tomorrow night. After midnight, when the cunts are done closing up shop. We’ll go in, torch the fucking carpet, and leave before anyone can see us.”  
  
Some prissy little twink three tables over is smiling. Lev watches him laugh with his friends over some stupid joke about what really happens when you drop the soap in prison. Christ, he’s obnoxious. The way he opens his mouth so wide when he giggles, like he’s practically begging for a cock to get shoved down his throat. Lev’d do it, too. Grip him by the hair, drag him out back, and slam his dick in pubes-deep just to get the little fucker to pipe down. The twink snorts too loud and the sound prickles Lev’s skin. He clenches his jaw, growls in annoyance, and grips his mug so hard it might actually break. Yeah. Maybe that’s what he needs. A fat cock in his mouth to keep him quiet. Lev’s head sloshes drunkenly with too much booze. He almost considers going over there to see if he can get slapped or laid, but Oleg’s reaching for his arm across the table, squeezing comfortingly, and Lev forgets all about his little revenge fantasy.  
  
“You’re not coming with us,” Oleg says rather flatly, tone serious even though he’s had enough beer to probably kill a small animal.  
  
Lev’s eyes go wide. “Why the fuck not!” he slurs.  
  
Mikhail leans forward on his elbows. “Because you’ve already been through enough, Lev. Just look at you. You’re barely breathing.” Lev wheezes, as if on cue, through his almost broken nose. “It’s our fault. If we’d just turned around and fucking _looked_ , maybe this wouldn’t have happened.”  
  
And Lev’s almost furious (and drunk) enough to agree. It’s not his fucking fault. It’s not. _It’s not_.  
  
Oleg nods solemnly. “That’s right. So just trust us, Lyovushka. We’ll make them pay.” He jabs Lev playfully in the arm. “Besides, you’re the one who’s supposed to make it off this rock someday, right? Can’t let you fuck that up anymore than you have.”  
  
He doesn’t want to trust them. He doesn’t even fucking trust himself right now. What the fuck is he supposed to do? Let them go off on some half-assed crusade for vengeance without him? It won’t prove anything. Anna’s dead. She’s not coming back. Doesn’t matter if they burn one or one hundred buildings in her name. She’s fucking dead. And Lev hates himself for not giving a single fuck about Oleg and Mikhail’s selfish quest for redemption or whatever the fuck this plan is. He doesn’t _care_. About them. About anyone.  
  
Lev wobbles as he gets up, the world spinning around him while he stands perfectly still.  
  
“Where are you going?” Mikhail croaks.  
  
“Dunno,” he replies. “Somewhere else. Don’t care. Good luck with your bullshit suicide pact t’morrow.”  
  
“Lev wait—”  
  
Out of the corner of his eye, Lev spots Oleg grabbing Mikhail’s wrist, keeping him planted on his stool when he tries to get up. They don’t chase after him, just like that night four weeks ago.  
  
Lev somehow finds himself walking toward the loud twink’s table. He doesn’t know why he’s coming over here, just that he doesn’t want to be alone. He pushes himself between the twink’s friends and cozies up to the pretty boy, flashing two rows of sharp teeth. The boy blushes, and that’s when Lev knows he’s got him hook, line, and sinker. All that’s left now is to dig his fangs in for the kill.  
  
“Wanna get fucked up?”  
  
Yes.  
  
Yes he does.  
  
*  
  
Two days later, Lev’s smoking a cigarette on David’s (Dmitry’s? Denis’?) fire escape.  
  
They’d fucked all night and Lev’d crashed afterwards, not really caring that Daniel, whatever his name is, thinks that this’ll lead to something more. Something with feelings and strings most definitely attached. Whatever. Not like that’s his problem. He’s here for the food and free blowjobs that comes with. He hasn’t thought about that night at _Ilyich’s_ since. Desmond’s flat ass helps him forget all about it.  
  
He finishes his smoke pretty fast because it’s still cold as balls outside and he doesn’t feel like freezing to death. Not right now.  
  
When Lev pads back inside, he finds Donald watching something on the television. The local news.  
  
“You see this?” asks Damien, pointing to the screen. “Some big fire at the Alliance Recruitment Center burned the whole place down. Two guys were caught in it. Might’ve started the fire or something and got themselves trapped inside. Morons.”  
  
Lev’s fingers twitch and his heart races uncontrollably. Two charred corpses on the screen. Ruled an accidental suicide. The suspects have been identified. Their names are—  
  
He grabs the remote and turns off the screen.  
  
“Hey!” Dean shouts, annoyed. “They were just about to—”  
  
Lev stands in front of him, crotch at eye level. “You gonna sit there and yap or put that mouth to better use?” He smirks down at Dale through thick, black lashes and chuckles when his fuck toy smiles right back. Such a cockslut. So easy. When Doug unzips his fly, pulls out Lev’s soft dick and sucks, Lev closes his eyes.  
  
And feels absolutely nothing.  
  
  
  
**AGE: 19 // CODE VIOLATION: #12031**  
  
  
  
“Why don’t you ever ask Oleg or Anna to help you with this bullshit?”  
  
Mikhail stops shoving pentazocine inside his duffel bag and stares up at Lev with an _are you kidding me_ look. “Oleg’s about as subtle as a freight train and Anna’s probably more unhinged than you. Which says a whole fucking lot. So just trust me when I tell you that you’re my only option.”  
  
On the first of every month, Mikhail makes a quick run through all the old folks’ homes, delivering drugs to the seniors who can’t afford Earth medicine. It’d started off as just a side thing he’d do for his grandmother and then had morphed into this giant underground courtesy, hidden in plain sight. He just walks through the front door, bag of narcotics in hand, like he’s motherfucking Santa Claus handing out pain meds to all the good little girls and boys. And for Mrs. Yakimov, tramadol! And for you, codeine! Lev helps him out sometimes because there’s nothing better to fucking do on this shithole of a planet. And if he’s lucky, Mikhail’ll give him something balls-trippingly hallucinogenic, maybe a pill that’ll show him never-before-seen colors and sounds. Yes, even sounds.  
  
They’re almost done dropping off the last of their fast food bagged deliveries. Just one more apartment to go. Mr. Kalugin in 615.  
  
Lev non-delicately pounds his fist against the old wooden door. “Ho ho ho! Merry Christmas!”  
  
Mikhail smacks him upside the head. “I told you to stop! They’re almost senile enough to believe it!”  
  
“Like Mrs. Yakimov on the third floor?” Lev chuckles, rubbing the sore spot behind his ear.  
  
Mikhail groans. “She keeps asking me for a dollhouse every time I run into her at the store. And it’s your damn fault!”  
  
“Maybe you should just buy her one, Mr. Money Bags. I’m sure you can afford one-a’ those fancy Earth play sets by now, right? Hologram family and all.”  
  
“Yeah, sure!” Lev stops laughing when Mikhail’s face brightens suspiciously. “I’ll just dock your pay every run you make. How’s 60-40 sound? You’ll be getting the 40.” Lev mutters something inappropriate for ages sixteen and under and promptly shuts his mouth. “Oh, come on kid. I’m just messin’ with you.” Mikhail fluffs the back of Lev’s head affectionately, cackling.  
  
Lev slaps Mikhail’s hand away, flustered. “I’m not a kid! And you’re only three years older than me, so stop actin’ all mature and shit! I know what your favorite cereal is! It’s—”  
  
The door creaks open just as Mikhail slaps a hand over Lev’s big mouth. “Ah, Mr. Kalugin!” he beams. His heavy palm silencing Lev’s muffled protests tells a different story. “Pleasure to see you, as always!”  
  
Mr. Kalugin leans against the doorframe, back hunched and hands unsteady. He’s been living in this complex for longer than Lev’s been alive. Which is a long fucking time considering they tear down and rebuild these shitty little buildings often, whenever the Alliance deems it necessary to expand even further inside the residential district. Mr. Kalugin’s a pretty decent old timer, though. He’s gone completely bald and is riddled with liver spots, but he always offers Lev some decade-old candy, just like every other geriatric in this fucking place. “Oh, Mikhail!” He turns to squint at Lev. “And the pussycat!”  
  
Lev growls unintelligibly, fingers flexing in anger. “The name’s Lev,” he grumbles, reminding himself to respect, not eviscerate, his elders. Mr. Kalugin has Alzheimer’s.  
  
“The young woman the other day—” he means three weeks ago “—said you liked that nickname.” Mr. Kalugin’s face withers sadly.  
  
Mikhail snorts into the sleeve of his shirt while Lev seethes. “Yeah, well, I don’t.”  
  
“Sorry about that, son. Didn’t mean anything by it.” Mr. Kalugin steps back, showing the way into his apartment. “Forgive my manners! Come inside, come inside! I’ll get you boys some gingersnaps and tea.” The gingersnaps are probably three months old. At the least.  
  
Lev shoots Mikhail a _don’t you fuckin’ make me eat another goddamn cookie or I’m gonna barf all over your shoes_ look. Mikhail grins. “Well I’m positively full, but my friend over here just _loves_ gingersnap!” Lev’s going to tear Mikhail to shreds. If he doesn’t upchuck first.  
  
“Oh, wonderful!” Mr. Kalugin practically radiates sunshine. Old, dusty, cobweb-covered sunshine. “I’ll go set the table!” He hobbles inside his apartment to go do just that, and to go find those moldy cookies.  
  
“I’m going to kill you,” Lev announces through clenched teeth. He’s already figured out the how and when, all Lev needs now is a good place to stash the body. Maybe in Mr. Kalugin’s apartment. No one would be surprised considering his fucking cookies might actually kill them. Correction. Kill _him_.  
  
Mikhail just laughs and waves his hand as he enters. “Not if you want a cut! Come on, you big pussy. Let’s go eat!”  
  
Yup. Under Mr. Kalugin’s bed. That’s where Lev’s going to shove Mikhail’s corpse.  
  
Right next to Anna’s.  
  
Two and a half hours and one stomachache later, Lev emerges from the complex by the skin of his teeth. He’s never eaten so many fucking cookies in his entire life. And he remembers why these little outings aren’t exactly a walk in the park. Mikhail’s a good fucking liar. “If those cookies were any staler they would’ve broken my goddamn teeth,” Lev groans. They tasted awful, too. “Why do you always hafta butter up the old folk like that, Mikhail!”  
  
Mikhail sifts through the stack of credits they’ve just raked in. Just enough to cover the cost, pay off his suppliers, and slip Lev a little something extra for being such a good sport. Mikhail rarely turns a profit, but that’s not his motivation for doing this. “Because they’re lonely, Lev. Just take a look around. Not many people come through these parts. Hell, not many people live here to begin with. Everything’s falling apart, but these old timers just won’t budge. Even after their kids’ve up and left them. It’s dangerous and so goddamn stupid, but they’re stubborn.” Mikhail chuckles lowly, but it’s a sad, hollow sound. Like he’s just as much a part of the problem as he is the solution. “Not like we’ve got anywhere better to go. Every fuckin’ place looks the same. No wonder we all choose the Alliance at some point or another.”  
  
And he’s right.  
  
Even the “newer” buildings the Alliance had erected as a show of good faith for the colonists of Mars have started to deteriorate. And that was twenty years ago, before Lev was even an idea in his mother’s mind. Not that he ever was, really. Everything’s bleak, the same shades of muted greys and black, reminiscent of a prison ward. Dirt, grime, and garbage strewn everywhere. Lev snorts because that’s what it fucking feels like at times. A fucking penal colony. Like they’re all useless castaways, the undesirable dregs of humanity that couldn’t catch a break back on shiny, clean Earth. He’s seen some pictures. From advertisements. Earth’s supposed to be this perfect utopia where everyone holds hands, sings songs, and talks about their goddamn feelings while a heartfelt rendition of Kum Ba Yah plays in the motherfucking background. Just the idea of stepping foot onto that planet brings back his nausea.  
  
Lev doesn’t care for how bright everything looks there, either. So blindingly white. Like they’re all too damn pure for the likes of him.  
  
He reaches for his pack of cigarettes and lights up. The smoke swirls upwards into the night sky.  
  
Those pretty test-tube clones could all stand to get a little dirty.  
  
“But…” Mikhail extends his right hand, waiting. Lev sighs and passes him the cigarette. “You won’t see me wearing that tacky uniform any time soon.” Mikhail takes a deep drag and then hands it back over. “And considering you sweat worse than a pig in a sauna, I’d say it’s a pass for you, too.”  
  
Lev bristles. “I do _not_ sweat that much!” he shouts around his Winston.  
  
“I’m just yankin’ your chain, Lev. Seriously.” Mikhail leaves the stoop and ruffles the top of Lev’s head. Lev recoils in horror. “You can’t take a fucking joke to save your life.”  
  
Lev smooths down his now messy hair. “Maybe it’s because all your goddamn jokes suck!”  
  
“Well that can’t be true. Anna laughs at them.”  
  
“Anna laughs at _everything_!”  
  
Mikhail shrugs. “True. But at least she can.” He pats Lev’s shoulder before heading south down the street. “C’mon. I’ve got one more job to take care of.”  
  
“One more?!” Lev jogs to catch up, circulating his blood because his toes have gone numb inside his boots. Christ it’s still cold out. These fucking winters last an eternity. “Thought you said we’d be done after this?”  
  
“It’s easy enough. Just a coupla guys who haven’t paid up. A friendly reminder visit. That’s all.” Mikhail rests his arms behind the back of his head. “I’ve got something to show you. C’mere.”  
  
They stop at Mikhail’s old, beat-up Volkswagen, a clunker he’d picked up for less than it’s worth—which isn’t a whole fucking lot considering the air conditioning doesn’t work and it’s rustier than the gutters on Lev’s apartment complex. But it drives just fine. Most days. “Take a look at this.” Mikhail pops the trunk and rummages through several layers of contraband. Some stolen ID’s, bags of narcotics, a crowbar. “Ah, there she is! Take a good look, Lev!”  
  
Mikhail pulls out what appears to be a top-of-the-line, factory fresh, Alliance grade pistol. The chrome shines brightly under the flickering street lamp above. Lev’s never seen something so high-tech in his whole goddamn life. It’s so shiny and insanely illegal. Lev wants to hold it.  
  
“Where the hell did you get _that_?” Lev asks, voice dropping, intrigued. He sounds like a fucking middle schooler staring in awe at his best friend’s swiped porn rag.  
  
“Oh, nowhere. Just a little trade I pulled a few weeks back.”  
  
“What the hell did you trade for it?!”  
  
Mikhail shrugs. “Some information and several bottles of Oleg’s hooch. Which I may or may not have poured down his throat. Liberally.”  
  
Lev snorts. “So you got ‘im drunk and swiped his gun. What else? You blow him under the table?”  
  
Mikhail frowns. “Jesus, Lev.” And then smiles playfully. “You know I never kiss and tell.”  
  
“That’s why no one fuckin’ knows if you’re into pussy or cock.” Lev takes another drag and stares at the gun. Right now he might be “banned firearms” sexual.  
  
Out of nowhere, Mikhail brushes up against Lev’s right arm and he smirks down seductively, completely in control of the situation. Mikhail bats those long fucking eyelashes of his and Lev nearly chokes on his cigarette, cheeks burning despite the weather. Lev’s been with guys before, sure, usually when he’s piss drunk and horny (which might as well be his constant state of being), but never sober. Mikhail’s attractive. Too fucking pretty to be a hundred percent straight. If he takes into account the way Mikhail’s staring at him, like Mikhail’s about three seconds away from shoving Lev into the backseat of his Volkswagen for a quick late night blowjob, then yeah, Mikhail’s pretty fucking gay. Or bi. _Fuck_. Maybe it doesn’t matter. Lev swallows dryly and tries not to think. He’s pretty good at that.  
  
“Wanna find out?” Mikhail asks, tone soft yet teasing. Lev unconsciously steps backwards. The backs of his legs hit the car’s bumper. Why the fuck does Mikhail have to be three inches taller?! And broader, too. He fills out that black turtleneck a little too well.  
  
Mikhail plucks the cigarette from between Lev’s lips, sucks down one last drag, and then exhales through his nose, right into Lev’s embarrassingly red face. “Just kidding!” he laughs.  
  
Lev’s blood pressure plummets, along with the beginnings of an erection, and he growls, shoving Mikhail far, far away. “Stop fuckin’ around! You gonna show me the gun or not!”  
  
Mikhail stops cackling and wipes the tears from his eyes. “Sorry, sorry. You’re just too damn easy sometimes, you know that?” He hands the pistol over to Lev. The weight of it (the gun’s practically feather-light!) rests coolly against his palms. “Go ahead, kid. Try it on for size.”  
  
“I told you!” Lev aims the pistol at the first thing he sees: a weathered Alliance poster, half-torn and wrinkled. “I’m not a fuckin’ kid!”  
  
“Coulda fooled me with that big grin on your face,” Mikhail chuckles, arms folded tightly across his chest.  
  
Lev clicks his tongue and focuses on getting the sights right between the smiling actor’s eyes.  
  
Mikhail’s hand on Lev’s shoulder surprises him. “Go ahead. Fire off a round.”  
  
Lev quirks a brow. “You sure?”  
  
“Just do it.”  
  
Lev steadies his aim and slowly squeezes the trigger. The pistol fires, shooting a small, concentrated beam in the blink of an eye that hits Lev’s mark dead-on. The poster sizzles and smokes, a hole no bigger than a small coin now residing where the fighter’s face used to be. Bullseye.  
  
“Jesus Christ,” Lev mumbles. Mikhail didn’t just blow the bastard; he probably bottomed for days, too.  
  
“Wanna borrow her for a bit?”  
  
And now Lev really does seem his age. “Fuck yeah!”  
  
Mikhail tries not to look too amused. “All right. Keep that tucked away and when I give the signal whip it out, okay? Be discreet though. We don’t wanna spook these guys.”  
  
“Wait, we’re not gonna kill ‘em, right?” Lev’s beaten guys to a pulp, knocked teeth out, and broken a few ribs. But he’s never fucking killed someone before. And he’s not looking to start.  
  
“Nah.” Mikhail waves his hand. “It’s just a little insurance on our part, so that we get the credits. These guys’ve had a week to cover their asses and they’ve been dickin’ around this whole time. Time to pay up.”  
  
Lev nods. “Okay. So where’re we doin’ this?”  
  
Mikhail fishes his car keys out of his pocket and jangles them. “Get in and I’ll show you.”  
  
The deal is apparently going down at the one bar all the Alliance recruits tend to frequent, the one closest to the port. Lev’s never been there before—it’s disgustingly modern and colorful, like the damn place tries too hard to be something it’s not. It’s a goddamn watering hole that sells overpriced beer and shots. Whether you slap a neon sign on the front or reupholster the stools doesn’t change the fact that it’s just another shitty dive where people go to drown their sorrows. Lev’d rather be at _Ilyich’s_ to be perfectly fucking honest. But that’s not where the fresh meat hang out. They don’t go there anymore. Suddenly too fucking good for their own kind, like greedy, newborn saplings who’ve forgotten their own roots.  
  
They can try to climb higher. Maybe pretend they’ve escaped the dirt.  
  
But it won’t fucking matter. It never does.  
  
Because on Mars, nothing grows.  
  
“Those three. Over there.” Mikhail points toward a table in the back. A group of fighters are sitting down, drinking some stupidly colored cocktails, something a test-tuber might order if they could ever pull the giant stick out of their ass far enough. “They owe me. Big time.”  
  
Lev digs his hands deep down in his pockets and huddles inside his jacket, burying himself into something familiar. “How much?”  
  
Mikhail frowns. “Two hundred.”  
  
Lev sputters. “You shittin’ me?!”  
  
Mikhail shakes his head. The music in the bar thumps too loudly for him to be heard below anything softer than a yell. “Nope! They’re popping these babies like candy.” He inconspicuously flashes Lev a small plastic baggie filled with what looks like pills, the kind a shrink might prescribe for hyperactivity or a few extra credits on the side. Definitely under, not over, the counter. “A new kind of psychostimulant. Helps them focus better and shit. I wouldn’t know, I’ve never done it. But they seem to think it works. I see ‘em almost once a week now. And those fucks just missed their last payment.”  
  
“So what’s the plan?”  
  
“You follow my lead and wait until I give you the signal.”  
  
“Which is—?”  
  
Mikhail tugs on his left earlobe. “That. When I do that, get the gun out and hide it under the table. You’ll know when to shoot. Hopefully we won’t have to.”  
  
Lev rolls his eyes. “How fuckin’ helpful, Mikhail. Could you be a little more cryptic for fuck’s sake?”  
  
“Hey, just trust me okay?” He patronizingly pats Lev’s shoulder the same way an adult might pat a child’s, obnoxiously knowing with a hint of mild condescension. “You just need to sit there and look pretty, kid. Which shouldn’t be all that difficult. There’s not much going on up here.” Mikhail prods Lev’s skull.  
  
Lev recoils and swats Mikhail’s hand away. “Fuck you! I don’t need brains to kick your smart ass!”  
  
“Well I’m glad you’ve at least recognized that you don’t have any.”  
  
Maybe he’ll point the gun at Mikhail’s dick instead.  
  
Mikhail laughs louder than the bass pounding against the walls and Lev sighs because despite everything, he knows Mikhail’s only teasing. Mostly. “You really are a kid, Lev. Maybe you’ll never grow up. Which isn’t bad, I suppose, all things considered.” He ruffles Lev’s hair and wrings his flat palm further down when Lev starts to fight back. “Don’t try to get there too fast, okay? Adulthood’s no fun.”  
  
Lev snorts. “You wouldn’t be sayin’ that if you saw the size of my—”  
  
The fighters howl with laughter, disturbing everyone around them. They’ve just passed the point of slightly tipsy and have now entered the realm of stupidly drunk. One of them nearly trips over their chair ordering another round. Mikhail smirks.  
  
“That’s our cue,” he says. “Keep your eyes peeled and let me do all the talking.”  
  
Lev and Mikhail walk over to the fighters’ table and ignore the cold stares directed toward them, like _they’re_ the fucking outsiders, not the other way around. Mikhail pulls up a chair, feet scraping the title, and he straddles the seat, arms resting on top of the metal back with his legs spread wide. Lev follows suit and plops down beside him, elbows resting against the cramped table. The drunken fighters stop laughing and momentarily size them up before recognizing just who’s joined them.  
  
“Mikhail!” slurs the one in the middle. God he sounds absolutely trashed. “Long time no see!” The fighter clumsily extends his right hand and grabs Mikhail’s own across the table.  
  
Mikhail fakes a laugh and shakes back. “Yeah! About a week, right, Anton?”  
  
“Right…” Even wasted Anton knows what Mikhail’s probably here for. Which makes his calm and casual shtick look downright phony. “Hey, Mikhail! Y’got anymore’a the, y’know, _stuff_ we like. Shit, we’re runnin’ low again. Almost flunked my last simulation without it. So do us a solid and slide a baggie under the table, ‘kay?”  
  
The guy to Anton’s right smiles goofily. “Yeah, man, we’d really, uh—” pause “appreciate! That’s the word! Appreciate it!” The Alliance really will hire anyone.  
  
Mikhail grins. “You know, I happen to have some on me right now.” Lev tenses when Mikhail fishes the small plastic bag out from his pocket, tossing it in plain sight on the table. Anyone could see just what the hell’s going on here if they bothered to stop and look. But no one does. Or maybe they do and don’t care. Either way, Mikhail’s a crafty son of a bitch. He always knows just how far he can push before it’s too damn much. And right now he’s practically rubbing their fat noses in the filthy mess they’ve created.  
  
The other guy on the left paws at the pills, but Mikhail stabs the bag in place with his right index finger. “It’s a shame, really,” Mikhail starts. “I was going to sell this to you guys, but then I remembered something. You still haven’t paid me for last week’s drop-off. So I guess—” Mikhail snatches the bag away “I’ll hold onto this and find another buyer. Someone who can pay.”  
  
Mikhail juts his chin toward the exit and Lev almost shouts “but we still haven’t got our fucking money yet!” but doesn’t when the fighters start to scramble for some kind of excuse.  
  
“Look. We just—we’ve been stressed out and shit, okay? The Alliance works us like dogs,” Anton explains, wringing his hands. Lev almost snorts because yeah, that’s what they fucking are. They’re only missing the collars. “Can’t you let it slide, just this once?”  
  
“I told you right from the start how this works, Anton. You give me credits, I get your pills.” Mikhail shakes them for emphasis. “You don’t give me credits, I take these pills and sell them to someone else who can. Simple as that. So pay up, or shut up, Anton. This isn’t a charity.” That’s the other half of his business, the half that’s almost bleeding him dry.  
  
Mikhail’s sudden reminder sets Anton off. His face flushes even redder and his eyes narrow, and for a moment Lev thinks he might actually start something in the bar. He reaches back for the gun, slowly, but then stops when Mikhail’s eyes catch his. _Wait_. So Lev does. Impatiently. His fingers twitch inside his pocket.  
  
“And I don’t think you know wha’ the fuck you’ve gotten y’self into, Mikhail.” Anton leans across the table so that they’re face-to-face. Lev can smell sugary-vodka clinging to his breath and he very nearly pukes. “Y’see. We work for the Federated fuckin’ Alliance now.”  
  
“And?” Mikhail sits up straight, hands resting on his thighs. “Is that supposed to mean something, Anton? Because I’m missing the point here.”  
  
“It means you can’t push us around!” shouts one of the fighters. He slams his fist hard on the table. A few patrons nearby glance at the commotion.  
  
And now Mikhail’s laughing, head thrown back as he lets the sound fill their small space. “So, what? I’m just supposed to bend over and take it because you’re into catsuits and leather these days?”  
  
Anton smirks. “Rumor is you really like takin’ it so, yeah, Mikhail. You are.”  
  
Lev growls lowly and moves to stand so he can lunge across the table and beat Anton’s ugly fucking face in, but Mikhail stops him at the last second, fingers digging painfully into Lev’s left thigh. How he can stay cool and collected right now is a goddamn mystery. Lev’s been seeing red throughout this entire conversation.  
  
“Well it’s a good thing I’ve got standards then, because I’d sooner shove this straw up my ass than your small, wrinkly dick.”  
  
A pistol lands on the table, barrel pointed straight at Mikhail. Anton’s finger rests lightly on the trigger. He’s so drunk he might actually pull it. “Watch what you say in here, buddy. All I gotta do is tell ‘em you reached for this first and that’s it. I’m clean.” Anton smiles, white teeth shining in the dark. “You’re in over your head.”  
  
Mikhail reaches up and tugs on his ear, rubbing the lobe between two fingers. “And yours is about to get blown off.”  
  
A single gunshot echoes throughout the bar.  
  
Lev fires the pistol under the table, aiming straight for Anton’s crotch. One less prick on this shitty planet to deal with.  
  
Screams break out and tables flip. Customers flee the scene in chaos while workers exit through the back. Mikhail grabs Lev’s arm just in time before the fighters can piece together what’s happened, drunken haze still dulling their senses. The other fighters in the bar join Anton’s group, drawing their weapons. Lev and Mikhail are outnumbered six to two. They dive behind an overturned, metal table, taking cover as rounds whizz past their heads. A stray shot explodes a bottle of rum and the glass shatters everywhere. The bass vibrates relentlessly against the walls.  
  
“Jesus fuck!” Lev shouts. He ducks his head back down before he loses his, too.  
  
Mikhail peers over the table. The fighters are about as organized as a herd of cats. Drunken cats at that. “Well that didn’t go as planned,” he laments with a sigh.  
  
“Oh, you mean you _didn’t_ plan on getting shot at inside a shitty Alliance bar!” Lev snaps sarcastically. He aims for one of the fighters’ legs. And misses. He curses heatedly under his breath.  
  
“It wasn’t high on my to-do list today, that’s for sure. Here gimme that.”  
  
Mikhail rips the gun out of Lev’s hands and takes aim over the table after the recruits are done unloading another round. He squeezes the trigger. A single beam hits the one on the left, right in his kneecap. The fighter howls in agony and crumples like a stack of cards to the floor, clutching the still sizzling burn mark.  
  
Lev gawks at the fighter and then at Mikhail. “What the fuck?!”  
  
“What?” Mikhail takes aim again. This time he hits the guy furthest to the right. In the elbow. He’s purposefully avoiding anything vital. Mikhail ducks back behind the table just as the four remaining retaliate. “We’ve all got hobbies.”  
  
They switch back and forth until no one’s left standing. Lev manages to finally land a shot on some poor guy’s hip, but Mikhail’s the one knocking them all down like cardboard ducks at a carnival shooting gallery. He pops out, aims, and fires. Lather, rinse, repeat. Lev’s almost as impressed as he is horrified. They crawl out from behind the table when the gunfire stops and the only sounds they can hear over the loud music are the recruits’ moans and groans.  
  
Anton rocks back and forth on the floor, mourning the partial loss of his penis. He’s still blubbering like a baby, curled into a fetal position. Mikhail grabs his left arm and slowly drags him through the back door, into the cold alley behind the bar. If the laser hadn’t cauterized his wound there’d probably be a wet trail of blood behind him.  
  
Mikhail drops Anton’s limp body on the snowy ground and stares down at his blank face. “You made your point clear so let me make mine: you get me those credits or it’s your balls next. One at a time.” Lev threateningly aims the pistol at Anton’s crotch. “So be a good boy and scrape the money together, will ya?” He pats Anton’s wet cheek and then slowly walks away.  
  
Lev trails closely behind Mikhail. They should probably get a move on before the cops show up. Someone’s bound to have heard what’d just happened. If they’re quick they can probably make it back to Mikhail’s place before anyone comes looking.  
  
“What if he snitches?” Lev asks as they bolt down the street. He’s breathless and still a little jacked on adrenaline. His heart hasn’t stopped pounding inside his chest.  
  
“He won’t,” Mikhail reassures. “He does and they’ll kick him out. One for fighting. And two for being a goddamn junkie. Anton won’t say a fucking thing. Same goes for those assholes in the bar. Shit like that doesn’t fly with the Alliance. They’re too cookie-cutter to keep people like that, no matter how desperate they get.”  
  
They round another corner and stop running to catch their breaths. The bone-chilling cold stings Lev’s heaving lungs as he pants and he can’t stop gasping for air even though it prickles painfully inside his chest, like a million tiny needles stabbing their way out of his ribcage. A light snow begins to fall, blanketing them both in a thin layer of frost. Lev shakes the snowflakes off.  
  
“Not bad, kid.” Mikhail pats the top of Lev’s head and smiles affectionately. Like clockwork, Lev swats his hand away. “You’re a shitty shot, but a pretty decent friend.”  
  
Lev gags. “Now I’m really gonna hurl.”  
  
“Oh, quit whining! I’m trying to be sentimental here!”  
  
“Well stop because it’s makin’ me nauseous. You know I’m not into that shit!”  
  
Mikhail snorts. “I forgot you’re more of a ‘congratulatory handjob’ kind of guy.” And then he steps forward, pressing Lev’s back against the hard concrete wall. “So how about it? Want one?” Mikhail licks his lips invitingly and Lev tenses, not sure what to do or say. His body responds automatically when Mikhail slides one leg between Lev’s own and Lev can feel his cock jumping to life inside his pants. Mikhail shuffles closer, towering over him. Those three fucking inches…  
  
The cold air between them suddenly becomes unbearably hot.  
  
Mikhail leans down, eyes lidded, and smirks when Lev takes the bait. “Just kidding!” he laughs.  
  
Lev’s dick deflates. “YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE” This time he shoves Mikhail hard enough so that he’s stumbling backwards into a dumpster.  
  
“Jesus, you’re too easy, Lev!” Mikhail cackles, holding his shaking sides. “Seriously, twice in one day! Wow! You really need to get laid, kid.”  
  
Lev frowns deeply because the sad state of his cock isn’t a fucking joke! “Says the guy who keeps blue balls-in’ me!”  
  
Suddenly, a loud siren rips through the silence. It’s close by, too.  
  
“Shit,” Mikhail breathes. “Okay, you go that way and I’ll go this way. We’ll meet back at the car in ten. Don’t get caught.”  
  
Lev goes right and Mikhail goes left. The cops park on the other side of the street and radio for backup.  
  
Six minutes of non-stop running later, Lev ducks behind a dumpster when he hears footsteps closing in on his position. These stupid fucking alleys don’t make any sense. He doesn’t frequent this side of the colony very often because it’s just crawling with Alliance and Lev curses because he’s managed to get himself lost at a time like this. The cops shine their flashlights down the alley, searching up and down for a possible suspect. Lev holds his breath and doesn’t dare make a sound. After a few seconds, the cops leave, heading further south.  
  
Lev exhales and dashes north, hoping that this time he’ll find the stupid fucking car. He’s wasted enough minutes just trying to get back to the main road.  
  
He briefly wonders if Mikhail managed to get his dumb ass back to that Volkswagen, if he’s waiting for him in the driver’s seat with the engine running and right passenger door unlocked. Mikhail had better fucking be there by the time he—  
  
“Hold it!”  
  
—gets there.  
  
Or doesn’t.  
  
Lev sighs as he throws his hands up in the air. He knows the drill by now.  
  
Two different cops—there must’ve been another car—pat him down. And then stop when they reach the back of his pants. _Shit_.  
  
“The hell is this?!” barks one of them as he pulls out Lev’s horribly concealed pistol.  
  
“Looks Alliance grade to me,” replies the other, shining his flashlight on the chrome barrel.  
  
“Looks fuckin’ illegal, too!”  
  
“All right, kid, you’re coming with us!”  
  
Lev groans when the familiar weight of heavy metal handcuffs settles around his wrists. They drag his tired body back to the car just as the snow begins to clear up.  
  
Well, at least he found one.  
  
“You got anything to say for yourself, kid?” shouts the officer shoving him inside the backseat.  
  
Lev shrugs and then smirks. “I’m holding it for a friend?” For once, he’s telling the truth.  
  
“Yeah, right!” snorts the cop in the driver’s seat. He shoves the key inside and starts the engine. “Dumb fuckin’ colonists.”  
  
Lev stares out the window and sighs. _Stupid fucking Mikhail._  
  
He better bail him out after he gets those credits.  
  
  
  
**AGE: 18 // CODE VIOLATION: #311**  
  
  
  
Saturday. One o’clock in the morning.  
  
He’s alone (lonely).  
  
And drunk.  
  
Again.  
  
Lev chugs the last swig of his beer and slams the glass down with a loud _thud_. A pretty waitress with massive DD’s walks over a few minutes later to take his empty mug. He’s never seen her around _Ilyich’s_ before. She’s gotta be new or something because he’d remember those knockers like the back of his right hand, the same one, coincidentally, he’d be jerking his cock with while he thought about creaming those perky, round tits. Shit, they’d look hot covered in jizz. Lev licks his lips when she smiles down at him. Maybe he can score. He’s never banged a redhead before.  
  
“Want another one, sweetie?” she asks, tone polite. That mouth’d look great slurping his dick, too.  
  
Lev cocks a grin and ogles her chest. “Yeah, sure,” he says, happily drunk. A few more and he’ll probably blackout. Good.  
  
“All right, hon. Anything else you need?” The waitress flips her hair back, exposing her slender neck. Lev wants to bite down, hard, until she screams.  
  
Lev leans back against his chair and unconsciously spreads his legs. “Nah. Not right now. Unless you’re offering?” He squeezes the growing bulge in his pants, but the action seems to go unnoticed.  
  
She laughs and Lev frowns. He’s never heard something so ugly. “Sorry, sweetie. I’m not. I fuck men, not boys.” She gestures toward the big guy at the counter eyeing them. He’s fucking ripped, almost as muscular as Oleg. “I’ll get you that beer, though.”  
  
The waitress saunters away, her thick ass swaying with each step, and Lev growls lowly. Fuck. He really needs to get laid. The rough glide of his own palm barely inspires a chub most days. He could probably call up an old fuck buddy, see if she’s interested, but there’s no fun in that. Half the thrill’s in the chase and Lev wants to hunt. So when the waitress comes back with another cold mug filled to the brim, Lev eagerly grabs it and starts downing his beer in one go. The alcohol goes straight to his head, and for a moment everything goes hazy and then comfortably numb, world spinning briefly before it seesaws back to normal. When he closes his eyes, Lev very nearly throws up, but then there’s a warm hand covering his and suddenly Lev’s stomach calms.  
  
He blinks slowly and stares at the person in front of him.  
  
“Hey,” says the boy sitting across the table. He’s thin, a few inches shorter, and fucking girly as hell. But an honest to God ginger, unlike the waitress from before. “Can I join you?”  
  
He coulda swore a pretty girl had touched him with how soft and delicate those fingers had felt. Shit. Maybe it’s the beer but Lev’s not exactly ripping his hand away. If he squints hard enough he can pretend the guy’s a chick. Okay. Yeah. That…that’ll work. For now. His cock can’t tell the difference, anyway.  
  
Lev grunts and nods, the closest thing to a _yes_ he can manage.  
  
The pretty boy grins and eyes Lev’s empty glass. “Can I buy you another?”  
  
It’s pretty obvious the twink’s hitting on him. God he’s desperate as fuck, too, practically drooling at the prospect of sucking Lev’s dick. Such a fucking slut, ready to bend over. And Lev almost wants him to. He’s pretty sure he’s not a fag or whatever. He likes pussy, a lot. But Lev might be into cocks, too. Or maybe just ass.  
  
He’d swiped his first porn rag at age fourteen. The corner store near his apartment used to stock them in the back right next to the condoms and pregnancy tests. Lev’d walked in one morning, on his way to school, and shoved the first magazine he saw down the front of his pants with all the grace a fumbling, hormonal teenager might possess. He’d hid by a fence and beaten one off behind the store, staring at pictures of porn stars with fake, round tits and clean-shaven pussies, legs spread wide, just begging for a cock. And then one day he’d noticed the guys giving it to them, too. That’s what prompted him to steal the _other_ mag next, the one filled with men balls-deep in each other, like they were actually getting off on having cocks up their asses. Lev’d sprung a boner by page five, his erection hardly coincidental, and then had ruined the rag somewhere between pages twenty-two and thirty. That’s when he realized, with an unhealthy amount of denial and self-hatred, that he could get it up for guys, too.  
  
Not that he ever has. Lev sticks with chicks for the most part. Mars isn’t Earth. People out here don’t wanna know or see what you do behind closed doors. And if they find out, then you can kiss your rep goodbye because folks out here won’t stop short of anything to make your life a living hell, not if it helps them get ahead. He’s seen classmates get beaten up, noses bloody and eyes blackened, just for staring too hard.  
  
So maybe he’s repressed or some other fancy psychobabble bullshit. He’s never seen a shrink and doesn’t plan on doing so, either.  
  
Lev knows what he likes: shoving his dick into any hole warm and wet enough to take it.  
  
Whether there’s a cock or clit in the way doesn’t matter. He’ll take what he can get because out here beggars can’t be choosers.  
  
And right now Lev’s chosen to see just how far he can take this.  
  
Which is apparently pretty fucking far.  
  
He’s not even halfway done with his next drink before the twink’s dragging him outside and slamming Lev’s back into the hard wall. Fuck, he’s stronger than his scrawny ass looks.  
  
The back alley’s dirty and gross, and Lev can only imagine how many people have come out here to vomit after one too many jaeger bombs. At least three. Last week when he, Mikhail, and Oleg had lost Anna’s challenge. And Lev’s pretty sure the rest of _Ilyich’s_ regulars have all done it at least once. He doesn’t care though because if he plays his cards right, Lev might get his dick sucked right next to that dumpster. Which, okay, is pretty fucking terrible, but Lev’s not concerned with logistics at the moment. Just whether or not the ginger’s got a gag reflex.  
  
After a few solid minutes of sloppy, drunken face fucking (there’s too much tongue and spit to properly call what they’re doing kissing), the twink drops to his knees and starts unzipping Lev’s fly. And when he reaches inside, and pulls Lev’s hard dick out into the cool autumn air, Lev shivers, and then groans because he was right—the pretty boy doesn’t have one.  
  
“Ah, fuck, fuck, _fuck_!” Lev hisses. “Shit. Adam.”  
  
“Alex,” he corrects around a mouthful of cock. Some of his drool slobbers to the ground.  
  
“Yeah, _fuck_ , whatever. Sorry,” Lev apologizes, not really caring. He just wants to get blown.  
  
Alex grips Lev by the base and works his jaw through every thick inch, only pausing to adjust when the tip hits the back of his throat. Lev’s got one hand buried in Alex’s messy, red hair and the other around the back of his neck, urging him deeper, to take his fucking cock all the way in until he’s choking around it. And Alex does, torturously slow, nose brushing Lev’s neatly trimmed pubes as he stuffs Lev’s entire length inside his mouth.  
  
Lev’s knees shake and his hips twitch. It’s so hot and wet and fuck, he just wants to _move_ whether Alex is ready or not.  
  
Alex pulls back with a loud suck and then bobs his head back down, repeating the process, a bit faster this time, building a steady rhythm that’s got both of them moaning. He’s good. So fucking good at sucking dick. Lev’s head falls forward, black bangs covering his eyes, but he can see well enough. Alex must be really fucking into this because he’s got his own dick in hand and he’s jacking himself off with fast, jerky flicks of his dainty little wrist. Lev could do better. Might even show the twink if he’s earned it.  
  
“Suck a cockslut,” Lev laughs. Alex swallows desperately around him. “You wanted my dick the minute I stepped into that bar, didn’t you? Wanted to taste my cum, huh?”  
  
Alex unashamedly moans and nods his head. He’s so full he can’t even speak right now.  
  
Lev grips a fistful of Alex’s stupidly soft hair (he probably uses something gay like conditioner) and yanks, keeping his head in place. “How ‘bout I fuck that pretty face of yours, sweetheart. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”  
  
He can’t help but grin when Alex makes the most pathetic, high-pitched keening noise Lev’s ever fucking heard in his entire damn life. He’s gotten girls to beg for his dick before, made them pout a bit prior to going down on them, but he’s never fucking seen someone so desperate for his cock.  
  
“Keep those teeth back and stay still,” Lev warns. He grips Alex’s neck for stability. “Or you’ll regret it.” Lev thrusts forward and Alex moans, eager for more. The hand on his cock starts to move again, but Lev kicks it away, snarling. “Don’t. You’re gonna cum when I fucking tell you to. So be good and just suck.”  
  
Maybe it’s because Alex is a guy (just barely meeting the criteria to be considered one), but Lev feels like he’s a bit rougher with him than he’s ever been with chicks. Like he can fuck Alex’s mouth without stopping to ask if he’s okay or whatever, because Alex knows just what to expect considering they’ve got the same parts. His mouth feels the same, wet and hot and velvety soft like any girl’s, and yet it’s completely different in a way Lev can’t explain. He just knows it feels good and that he’s really fucking close.  
  
Lev brutally snaps forward, not the least bit gentle as he chases after his impending orgasm, so, so close to blowing his load. He briefly considers warning Alex about the buckets of cum he’s gonna unload down his throat, but he ultimately decides against it, because Lev doesn’t fucking care.  
  
“Hah, _fuck_!”  
  
The first spurt of cum slides down Alex’s throat with ease. It’s the second and third that give him some trouble because Lev’s coming so hard and there’s just _so much_ , he’s barely able to keep up. Drool and semen slip past the corners of his lips, dribbling down Alex’s chin because his mouth’s so full and Lev refuses to budge. When Lev’s finally finishes he pulls out and slumps against the wall, a little bit smug. And he should be. Because his fuck buddy looks absolutely wrecked. Alex must’ve swallowed because he’s sticking his tongue out to lick the mess off his face with teasing, fat swipes. Lev snorts. What a cumslut.  
  
A cumslut who hasn’t come by the looks of it. Alex’s dick is still hard and leaking between his legs.  
  
“Get up,” Lev commands, not even bothering to tuck himself back in. He could probably get hard again at some point.  
  
Alex wobbles onto his feet, legs shaky, and he gasps when his back meets the wall. Lev keeps him pinned in place and avoids his fucking mouth like the plague. He’d rather suck a cock than taste his own jizz. Which is what he’s about to do for the first time, while drunk, behind _Ilyich’s_. Truly a milestone in his life.  
  
Lev's thought about it before, blowing a guy. He's never imagined he'd enjoy it, but if he wants to wreck this guy's ass later, then he'd better reciprocate with something a bit more substantial than a handjob.  
  
He drops to his knees and kind of just stares at Alex’s cock for a bit, not really sure what to do after he’s peeled away the tight jeans and briefs. Alex had deepthroated him like a pro, but Lev's barely even sure he can get past the head. Fuck. Is he actually nervous about this?! Alex isn't big either. He's pretty average to be honest, but _Christ_. Lev’s never… How's he supposed to—  
  
"First time?" laughs Alex, voice a little strained after having been thoroughly throat fucked.  
  
Lev snarls, upper lip curling. "No!"  
  
And Alex smiles because he can easily see that it is, but he's not about to tell Lev that. "Then what are you waiting for?"  
  
"Nothing."  
  
The first lick inspires little more than a giggle out of Alex, like he's humoring Lev's efforts instead of actually enjoying them. And somewhere, deep down, that pisses Lev off. So he starts to swallow, inch by inch, until he's gagging a bit on precum and spit, but at least he's drawing out moans this time, and not half-assed, faggy laughs. Alex chokes and then groans when Lev sucks the tip, tongue flicking against the head, and that's when Lev knows he's got the twink right where he wants him. Lev digs his thumbs into Alex’s bony hips as he starts to bob back and forth, lips stretched wide around his red cock, and Lev moans because he’s kind of getting off on this.  
  
He's not an expert at giving head by any means. Lev can't even manage three quarters of the way, but Alex squirms and writhes all the same, so slutty and eager to get blown. And, bizarrely, Lev can sort of see the appeal in sucking dick after trying it for himself. Alex is hot and heavy on his tongue, throbbing and thick, and he tastes just as gross as Lev thought he would, but that's not the part that's making Lev hard. It's the faces Alex makes, the way he pants and fucking sobs like he might actually die if Lev suddenly stopped and pulled off before finishing. That's what's giving him an erection. Not the stupid fucking blowjob, but everything else attached to it.  
  
Lev slides off with a wet pop, licking his swollen lips, and Alex actually shakes, harder than an addict on day two without his fix.  
  
And Lev can only grin, all teeth and arrogance.  
  
Because he fucking loves being the one in control.  
  
Alex cums seconds later, hot semen coating the entire length of Lev’s tongue, and Lev’s not sure whether he should spit or swallow. God it’s fucking bitter and tastes even worse than Anna’s cooking, but he doesn’t want to be a pussy too afraid to stomach a little spunk. Whether he’ll throw it all up later remains to be seen. But right now, he’s gonna swallow it along with his pride.  
  
Or he would if an obnoxiously bright light wasn’t shining in his face.  
  
A drunk officer stumbles into the back alley probably looking for a quick fuck just like everyone else on Saturday night.  
  
Lev gets busted on his knees, hand still wrapped around his rock hard dick. He’s an adult now, so they won’t bother calling home.  
  
His mother'd keel over if she ever found out about her son, the fucking queer.  
  
But she won't.  
  
Because the last time they spoke was well over a year ago, at home, on her deathbed.  
  
And, somehow, that sad little fact is morbidly comforting at a time like this.  
  
Lev just can't stomach any more disappointment.  
  
Or cum, presently.  
  
The cop interrogates them both for names. Most people would walk away and mind their own business, or even ask to join in if they had enough alcohol coursing through them. But not this prick. He can see the mess all over the ground, piece two and two together, and figure out that he’s missed another golden opportunity.  
  
Not that Lev would ever consider the possibility in the first place. He’d rather get shot in the knee, repeatedly, than suck police dick, even if the guy said “pretty please with a cherry on top”. Which isn’t the case nine times out of ten. These cunts don’t exactly ask. They just do. Whatever, or whomever, they want.  
  
Alex begrudgingly gives his, more embarrassed than upset about the whole thing. They’ll probably get fined and charged with public indecency at the very least. Or beaten up and called fags in a cold holding cell at worst.  
  
“And yours?” the officer snaps, shining the flashlight straight into Lev’s eyes. Lev’s pupils shrink, reflecting the light right back at him, like a cat’s. “Come on, asshole, I haven’t got all fuckin’ night here!”  
  
That’s when Lev remembers to swallow, lukewarm jizz sliding thickly down his throat.  
  
He sighs, licks the front of his teeth, and then smirks when the officer grimaces in both disgust and envy.  
  
“Lev,” he says, voice loud and clear and so idiotically. “Lev Malikov. Why?” Lev squeezes his dick and the cop practically pales, color draining from his face. Lev laughs, mockingly, because even though he’s down on his knees, Lev’s still the one in control. And he always has been. “You want a taste?”  
  
  
  
**AGE: 17 // CODE VIOLATION: #148**  
  
  
  
“I like the new look.”  
  
“Huh?”  
  
“Your hair. The way you cut it. Looks good. And that blue highlight thing you’ve got going on. It’s…n-nice…”  
  
Anna can’t help herself. She explodes with laughter, doubled over on the stoop of their apartment complex as the shared cigarette between her fingers continues to burn. Her eyes water and she wipes the tears away, still giggling even though it’s been well over a minute.  
  
Lev doesn’t find it fucking funny at all. “Oh shut up!” he snaps. He steals the cigarette before she’s wasted the whole damn stick. These fuckers aren’t cheap.  
  
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Anna waves her hands apologetically, calms down for ten seconds, and then slips into another hysterical fit. She’s laughing so hard her fucking face turns red.  
  
He huffs the cigarette out of spite. “Fuck you. I like it.”  
  
Anna scoots closer and musses the back of Lev’s freshly sheered hair. “And that’s what’s important! Even if it does look like you hacked off bits and pieces with a rusty lawnmower!”  
  
“I’m gonna hack _you_ to bits and pieces if you don’t stop fucking laughing!” Lev fixes the mess she’s made, arranging the strands just so. Fuck her. It looks cool.  
  
The sudden weight of her arm around his shoulders startles him. Lev frowns, but doesn’t shove her off. There’s no point. Anna always gets what she wants. He’s tried to, so many times before, but she clings worse than fucking cancer to every crack, corner, and crevice of his body, clogging his pores and suffocating his lungs, laying down roots from the inside out. Five whole years of gradual, innocuous change to the point where Lev can’t even recognize himself anymore. Not that he’d want to. He’s much better this way. Because of her.  
  
Lev finishes the cigarette and squashes the dying stub out on the step below. He holds the smoke deep in his chest and then exhales, already reaching for another. Maybe they’ll kill the whole damn pack in one afternoon.  
  
Autumn always brings out the worst of Lev’s habits.  
  
He has Oleg to thank for that.  
  
“But seriously, Lev,” Anna continues while she drapes herself across his back, “it’s not that bad. You’ll grow into it, I think. It’ll just take some getting used to. Especially these.” She tugs on his blue bangs and smirks when he growls. “But this—” she ruffles the back “—really suits you. It’s so fluffy and big, like a mane. Compliments your name, too.”  
  
Lev lights up, orange flame bright against his palm, and he shrugs her hand away. “Not what I was aiming for, but whatever you say, princess.” She can be such a mother hen sometimes. He’s never minded though.  
  
“Oh cut the crap, Lev! And don’t call me that. I’m trying to pay you a compliment here!” Anna steals the cigarette before Lev can even get one drag off. “At least I didn’t call you cute.”  
  
Lev snorts and watches her smoke. Anna’s the one who taught him how to savor a good cigarette back when he’d steal his mother’s own. They’re pretty pricey on Mars and often hard to come by, but most people find a way to get their fix. You either smoke or drink or a little bit of both because there’s nothing else on this shit stain of a planet to do. _“You’re supposed to make it last! You can’t just rush through like some pre-teen huffing his first pack!”_ He still does, though. Whenever she’s not around. The tobacco just doesn’t taste the same.  
  
“Don’t be a cunt,” Lev laughs. He plucks the cigarette from between her fingers.  
  
Anna frowns, her dark brows creasing. “You used to like it when I called you that!”  
  
“I was twelve!” Lev shouts. God he was so embarrassing before his balls dropped.  
  
“And…?”  
  
“I’m seventeen now. Real men aren’t cute.”  
  
Anna wheezes. “Oh, okay, Mr. Man! You sure showed me! I won’t call you or your very grown up, super serious, adult hair cute ever again.”  
  
He rolls his eyes. “Bitch.”  
  
“Brat.” Anna pinches his cheek and claims the cigarette as her own. “Stop hogging the whole thing, Lev! You need to learn how to share.”  
  
“Like hell! You’re the one who smoked the last one!”  
  
“That’s because you’re just too damn slow!”  
  
They wrestle for the cigarette, limbs flailing and voices echoing through the empty street. A few passersby stare oddly, but don’t comment. Anna cheats by pulling on Lev’s earring and Lev can’t help but become momentarily distracted, howling in pain because that was really fucking low! She surges up, snatches the stick away, and triumphantly places it between her lips, end still burning. Lev sulks like a child who’s snapped off the shorter half of the wishbone.  
  
Anna grins smugly. “Life goes by fast, pussycat. You better catch up or you’ll get left behind.”  
  
That’s just how things are on Mars. You take what you can when you can, before the competition leaves you high and dry. Lev’s had seventeen years to learn that lesson, the hard way. He never was very good at school.  
  
But books can’t teach you everything.  
  
Lev grabs the pack and shakes the cigarettes still inside. They’ve got six, maybe seven left. “We have plenty, Anna.”  
  
She sighs dramatically, one hand on her hip as the other threads through her long black hair. “I’m not letting you waste those.”  
  
Lev slaps the bottom and produces another stick. “Oh, yeah? Watch me.” Anna lunges for the pack but comes up short. Lev slips the small box inside his pocket when she’s just out of reach and he cackles. “What was that about being too slow?” He sticks his tongue out to add insult to injury.  
  
Anna snorts. “So mature. You really are an adult now, aren’t you?”  
  
The lighter warms the inside of his cupped palm. “Don’t be a sore loser. I won them fair and square.”  
  
“If by won you mean stole, then sure. You did.”  
  
Lev smirks and takes a long, satisfying drag. “And who taught me how to do that?” The cigarette burns between his thin fingers, thick smoke obscuring her face.  
  
“I dunno,” she singsongs. Anna plops down on the step next to him, cozying up until they’re hip-to-hip. Her body heat seeps through Lev’s thick sweater, straight down to the bone. “But whoever did is a terrible influence!”  
  
And now they’re both laughing, holding their sides and shaking, voices full and bright in the chill autumn air. If this were Earth and not shitty old Mars, there’d be a huge pile of leaves sitting squarely in the street, deep reds and soft yellows so warm and inviting, and Lev’d probably be the first one to dive right in. But this isn’t Earth, just shitty old Mars, and the only huge pile Lev can spot for miles is the mountain of old trash heaped in front of their building. They still haven’t come to collect the damn bags. Assholes.  
  
They smoke in comfortable silence for a while, lazing around like two good-for-nothing deadbeats. Which couldn’t be further from the truth. Anna and Lev both work in a factory. Assembly line packaging doesn’t pay all that much, but some credits are better than none, even if those credits cost a few skin cells here and there. Lev glances at the back of Anna’s left hand and frowns. He remembers a loud, terrifying scream and the sound of burnt, sizzling flesh. There’s a reason she keeps her sleeves tugged down so low.  
  
“So, how’s school going?” Anna asks after a while, leaning back on her hands.  
  
Lev shrugs. “Dunno. Haven’t been in weeks.”  
  
“What?!” She turns toward him in the blink of an eye and grips Lev’s arm tighter than a vice. He hisses in pain. “Are you some kind of idiot?! What the fuck did I tell you, Lev?!”  
  
He tries to shake her off. He really, really does, but she won’t fucking budge. Christ is she stubborn. “I don’t have time for that shit anymore, okay?! You know what I’m dealing with here!”  
  
Anna pales, complexion whiter than a sheet. She swallows thickly and nods because yeah, she fucking knows exactly what he means. “I do, but you need to finish! How’re you supposed to get off this rock if you don’t even pass your GED, Lev?”  
  
“Well maybe I’ve realized that I’m never fuckin’ leaving, all right?! There’s no point! It was just a dumb dream from when I was a kid. I grew up, that’s all.”  
  
Jesus fuck won’t she shut up about this already?! So what if he doesn’t graduate. Who the fuck cares?! It’s not like he’s cut out for space or anything. Lev’s never been extraordinary, just exceptionally average. What’s he supposed to do up there anyway? Haul trash? Clean ships? Shit, he could do that down here, a lot safer, too. The only way to make it big is if you’re wearing Alliance black and navy blue, and Lev’s never been a huge fan of uniforms to begin with. So he’ll take his chances down here, with everyone else. At least on Mars he’ll still have Anna (and a lifetime’s worth of regret).  
  
He expects her to yell, maybe leave in disgust, but what Lev doesn’t see coming is her right hook on a collision course for his left eye.  
  
Lev drops the cigarette and howls in pain, a string of curses flying from his lips as he rolls around, shocked. “What the fuck?!”  
  
“How much longer are you gonna just keep runnin’ away!”  
  
He cracks open his sore eye behind two splayed fingers. Her face is all scrunched, brows and lips quirked as she towers over him, like Anna’s about three seconds away from exploding with rage. Lev’s seen firsthand the damage she can do. Broken bones, chipped teeth, and, sometimes, even blood. He’s never been on the receiving end before, though. Until now. Jesus Christ, she packs a punch. Lev props himself up on one hand and tends to his new shiner with the other.  
  
Anna stares down at him, her long, outstretched shadow swallowing Lev whole. “I thought you said you were a man. Or was that all talk? Because the only thing I see in front of me is a scared little boy too afraid to leave home. What? You need me to hold your hand? Is that it? You too chicken shit on your own?!”  
  
He is.  
  
He fucking is.  
  
But there's no way in hell he'd ever admit that to her. Out there, in space, you've only got yourself and your thoughts to keep you company. No friends. No family. No fucking colony. Just the crippling silence of an endlessly black void. And that scares him more than any cop could. Not because Lev doesn't want to go. Because he does. More than anything. He wants off this fucking rock as soon as possible. He'd put himself on the next shuttle if he had the damn money. Right now, at this very fucking moment. Space can't possibly be any shittier than the filth he's already used to. Hauling junk in zero gravity beats doing the same down here, even if it means he’d still be underpaid and poor.  
  
One day he’s gonna make it.  
  
See what’s out there for himself.  
  
But he doesn’t want to leave on his own.  
  
Not without Anna, Oleg, or Mikhail right there with him, like they've always been for the past five years. He wants that more than his own goddamn freedom even though Lev knows they've already fucked up theirs. Too many strikes on your record and that's it. You’re permanently grounded, for the rest of your life. Sneaking onto a ship is even pricier than buying a one-way ticket off. It takes years, sometimes decades to hoard enough credits. And there’s no way in hell they’ll earn that much any time soon. So the figurative torch has been passed on to him, and Lev’s utterly terrified of letting them down. Afraid he’ll mess this all up and fail spectacularly.  
  
But he’s even more afraid of disappointing Anna.  
  
More so than being alone.  
  
Anna flicks the butt of her withered cigarette away. It fizzles out next to an empty can, drowning in beer. "So what's it gonna be, Lev? Down here or up there? Don't bullshit me this time."  
  
He knows the answer, the one she wants to hear.  
  
It’s just a matter of believing in himself and knowing that it’s true.  
  
“I’ll fucking do it,” Lev mutters under his breath so softly he doubts she even heard.  
  
Anna cups her ear and bends down. “What?” she squawks. “Couldn’t hear you, kid! Speak up!”  
  
He sits up and groans, annoyed. "Fine!" he shouts. "Jesus fucking Christ you win, okay?! I'll get my damn diploma if it'll make you shut the hell up, all right?!”  
  
Anna smirks triumphantly and sits back down, invisible soapbox kicked to the side. What a fucking bitch. But she’s right. He’d probably regret it a few years down the road. Doesn’t mean he has to like admitting he was wrong in the first place, though.  
  
“Good choice.” Anna pats the top of Lev’s head and laughs when he flinches. “Just think how proud your mom’ll be when you graduate!”  
  
Oh. This topic. _Again_. “She hasn’t been proud of a single damn thing I’ve done in my entire fucking life, Anna. Getting a piece of paper that says ‘Congrats! You didn’t flunk!’ won’t mean shit to her.”  
  
Her loud exasperated sigh turns his stomach. “That’s bullshit and you know it. Your mom cares.”  
  
Lev rolls his eyes. “Yeah. About which cigarettes I bring home.”  
  
Anna doesn’t have anything smart to say. She just fidgets with her lighter and rocks back on her elbows because yeah, Lev’s mother’s a fucking cunt. But she’s the only one he’s got. And considering how she’s been for the past six months, he doubts it’ll be for much longer, either. Good fucking riddance.  
  
“How’s she doing, by the way? Your mom,” Anna says, voice quiet. She’s asking for posterity’s sake even though she already knows the answer.  
  
“Fine,” Lev lies because it’s easier than telling the truth.  
  
Anna hums, unsatisfied, but doesn’t press the issue any further. Like always.  
  
There are some buttons even she won’t push.  
  
“You know,” he says after a beat, wanting to change the subject because he’d rather talk about anything else than his fucking mother right now, “you didn’t have to fucking punch me to get the point across.” Lev touches his bruise and winces. It’ll be black by tomorrow.  
  
The way she laughs sets him at ease. “Probably not, but it felt good! And when you started to cry I almost lost it.”  
  
“I didn’t cry!” he snaps.  
  
“Oh yes you did! Like a little bitch, too! I almost felt bad about it, but then you tried to look all tough and shit and I fucking died! You looked like a little kid trying to be brave at the doctor’s office, right when he whips out the needle. It was so—”  
  
Lev glares. “—don’t you fucking say it.”  
  
Anna bites her tongue, smirks, and then mouths the word “cute”.  
  
Lev seriously considers tossing the rest of their cigarettes into the sewer. He’d probably regret it, but, fuck, the face she’d make as he shoved each stick through the drain would probably make the whole ordeal worth it. He’s not that vindictive, though. At least not yet. They’ve still got a few hours to kill, so he’ll wait and see just how far she’ll take this before he exacts his revenge.  
  
But those hours turn to minutes when a somewhat expensive looking car, one of the newer models probably imported from Earth, rolls down the street a few seconds later. A cop trails behind it, lights flashing. The driver’s probably someone from the Alliance or a colony official. Lev’s never seen one on this side before, in the slums. Those sellouts usually keep to their small slice of Mars, away from everyone else.  
  
“The hell are they doing here?” Lev asks, rising to his feet. The car comes to a stop, parked at the end of the block.  
  
Anna joins him as she watches the suit get out of the car. “Dunno. But I don’t like it.”  
  
Some stuffy official with a bigger gut than Anna’s and Lev’s combined strolls down the street with two officers behind him. He’s got some papers in hand and marches up to each complex’s door, tacking them on one after another. Anna drops her half-finished cigarette to the ground and snuffs the flame out with the toe of her boot. Her arms fold neatly across her chest and she scowls, not the least bit happy. Lev doesn’t like what he sees, either. Nothing good ever comes from these impromptu visits.  
  
Three minutes pass and the official winds up right in front of their stoop. He looks a bit winded from climbing a few stairs. “Excuse me,” he announces. Lev immediately hates his voice. “But could you please step aside?”  
  
“What for?” Anna barks.  
  
The official pales, obviously not used to the question. The two cops behind him casually rest their hands on their holstered guns. “Official colony business. Now, please, _move_.”  
  
Lev grabs her elbow and gently tugs, silently urging her to do as the man says before they wind up on the wrong end of a glock. Anna begrudgingly moves and the official walks right past them, climbing up the steps. He stops in front of their complex door, grabs a paper, and tapes it to the heavy, artificial wood, then makes to leave without saying a word.  
  
Anna marches right up to the paper and skims the bold, red print. “You’ve gotta be shitting me!” She turns around and glares. “You can’t just kick us all out! Where the hell are we supposed to go?!”  
  
Lev looks at it for himself.  
  
The paper’s an eviction notice worded with pseudo-positive, flowery language, the kind of bullshit the Alliance loves to use. _Thank you kind colonists for your continued support! A new opportunity awaits you!_ They’re supposed to leave by the end of the month so that the colony can tear down this whole section and build another training facility for the “community”. The Alliance thinks they fucking own this planet and everything—everyone—on it. Lev nearly shouts in anger. He’s been living in this building his entire life, ever since he was a kid. He’s grown up here, watched all the neighborhood kids move in and out over the years, he even met Anna, Oleg, and Mikhail on this very street. And now they wanna take that away from him. Lev thinks of his mother and the state that she’s in, and he fumes. These bastards are too goddamn much.  
  
“Well, if you read the bottom portion, it details the steps you can take to ensure a spot within the neighborhood,” the man shoots back.  
  
Anna visibly shakes, her hands balled into fists. “Conning people into building a fucking training facility is lower than low. We’re not your slaves, asshole! This is our home!”  
  
The man turns an unsightly shade of red. “Listen, missy, I don’t make the rules. I simply follow them.” He clears his throat and straightens his tie. “Now then, you can follow the guidelines on the notice or simply find another neighborhood to relocate to. Or perhaps a different colony. Those are your options. Have a good day.”  
  
“Or I could do this.”  
  
Anna storms over to the door, rips the notice down, and grabs her lighter. Lev watches in horror as she flicks the igniter and catches the corner on fire. The notice burns up, swallowed by bright red and orange flames. She’s done a lot of crazy things before, but this takes the fucking cake. And Lev’s not sure whether he should be shocked or impressed.  
  
The pompous jerkwad recoils in disgust. “Y-you can’t do that!” he shrieks.  
  
“I just did,” she laughs. Anna drops the charred paper onto the ground and shreds it to pieces with her foot, ripping the brittle document until it’s nothing but ash.  
  
Lev snorts in amusement. “A little overkill dontcha think?”  
  
She shrugs. “Not for these douchebags. They deserve it.”  
  
Mr. Potbelly points one of his oversized fingers accusingly at them. “Officers, arrest them! This is clearly obstruction!”  
  
Lev freezes in place. “Anna,” he warns, tone uncertain.  
  
She holds her ground. “Oh come on, Lev. Don’t be a pussy. Sometimes you gotta fight for what you want. You remember what I told you, right?”  
  
He does. _“Bite the bastards bloody to prove that you’ve still got teeth. Don’t let them think they’re the ones in control. And if you’re gonna fail, then fail. Just make sure you go out with a bang.”_ Lev remembers the words clearly even through the drunken haze. He remembers Anna leaning over the table, slurring them against the shell of his ear and cackling when he’d finally processed what she’d said. He doubts he’ll ever forget, either. Because those words might be the only thing left he unconditionally believes in.  
  
There’s a brief scuffle, almost too quick to be called a proper fight. Anna jabs the cop right in the face just as he’s about to subdue her, baton in hand. He crumples like a flimsy house of cards and clutches his face. Lev narrowly avoids getting tased and slams his boot into the other officer’s shin, hard enough to topple him over.  
  
Anna slips out of the officer’s second attempt and ducks left. She kicks her foot out and intentionally trips him onto the hard stairs below before making a break for it. She’s pretty damn slippery in an actual fight.  
  
Lev follows her lead and jumps over the railing, landing onto the sidewalk with a heavy _thud_.  
  
They sprint down the street as fast as they can, but don’t get very far.  
  
A single bullet whizzes by as a warning, very close to Anna’s left thigh.  
  
They freeze in place, hands high in the air.  
  
“You got any other dumb ideas?” Lev grumbles from the corner of his mouth.  
  
She sighs, disappointed. “Not really. But look on the bright side, Lev.”  
  
“What fucking bright side?!” The officers are almost caught up, handcuffs at the ready.  
  
“We could’ve been shot!”  
  
Lev groans.  
  
The cops promptly subdue them and drag their bodies back to the car.  
  
Lev’s face meets the cold hood of the sedan and he grimaces in pain as they pat him down, looking for anything illegal he might have on him. They find the cigarettes, frown in disgust, and then chuck the pack away. Twenty credits down the drain. Anna gets the same treatment, except they spend a bit more time feeling her up. The officer she’d punched creeps dangerously close to her ass and Lev struggles against the car.  
  
“Hold still, kid!” says the cop holding him down. He puts one hand over Lev’s mouth to shut him the fuck up and presses the other into his spine, keeping him pinned.  
  
Lev almost gives up and then he hears Anna’s voice, loud and clear, inside his head.  
  
He opens wide, sinks down, and bites hard enough to taste blood.  
  
“Ah, fuck!” the cop shouts in surprise. “He bit me! The kid fucking bit me!”  
  
The other officer peels himself away from Anna to grab ahold of Lev. He slams Lev’s head down into the car and Lev shouts in pain.  
  
“You should consider getting yourself tested for rabies,” the official comments as he watches the brutality play out before him. “You never know with their type.”  
  
Lev earns a five-minute lesson on how to respect authority before being thrown into the backseat, along with Anna. His head hangs limply and the blood gushing from his nose drips down onto the carpet. He’s breathing pretty hard, chest heaving, and there are golf-ball sized bruises hidden beneath his sweater. But Lev doesn’t regret it.  
  
“And you said I was dumb.” Her voice wavers on that last, quiet word. She’s trying to keep the atmosphere light, but Anna just can’t stomach the sight in front of her.  
  
Lev smirks despite the pain. “You are,” he mumbles and then spits a thick, bloody loogie onto the floor. “You’re the one who told me to bite ‘em.”  
  
Anna rolls her eyes and laughs, squirming closer to Lev so that he can rest his head on her shoulder. “Figuratively, moron. This is why you need to stay in school.”  
  
He takes her up on that invitation and exhales shakily as he lays his head down and closes his eyes. “Yeah, you’re right. But I’m blaming you for all the days I’m gonna miss.”  
  
“Whatever you say, pussycat.”  
  
“Bitch.”  
  
“Brat.”  
  
*  
  
Lev gets out first. He’s still a minor (thankfully) and they can’t hold him any longer than a few days. He can’t say the same for Anna, though. She’s still pulling “community service” down by the port, cleaning the starfighters docked there at the end of each day because there’s no point in sending their already dwindling population to the slammer over something so pointless. They sure do waste enough taxpayer money on these rather stupid punishments, though.  
  
He uses his one phone call on Oleg, the only person he knows’ll answer. They tried calling his mom, but that’s never fucking worked before.  
  
“Christ, Lyovushka, you look like shit,” Oleg comments when Lev hops into his truck. “They sure got you good. Especially here.” He pokes Lev’s bruised eye.  
  
Lev hisses in pain and swats Oleg’s large hand away. “Wasn’t them,” he admits. “That one’s from Anna.”  
  
Oleg snorts. “Shoulda known.” He puts the keys in the ignition and the truck rumbles to a start. “All right, kiddo. Let’s get you home.”  
  
He ends up passing out for most of the ride and only startles awake when the truck comes to a complete stop. Oleg pats Lev’s bruised shoulder and announces that they’re here. Lev stumbles out and lugs himself up the stairs, vaguely aware of a new eviction notice tacked onto the complex door. He punches in the code and drags himself up to the eighth floor.  
  
Lev struggles with the lock for a good three minutes, but manages to get inside.  
  
The first thing he does after dropping his coat onto the floor is check on his mother. She’ll be in her bedroom, like always. She never leaves it.  
  
He cracks open the door and finds her lying still, asleep.  
  
Lev sits down on the edge of the bed. The mattress dips with the added weight. His mother slowly wakes, turning to face him. Her nightgown’s covered in day-old puke and she reeks of sweat and vomit. She probably tried to make something for herself—pasta, judging by the reddish stains on her shirt—and couldn’t hold it down. That or she tried to smoke after her meal. It’s hit or miss most days. Sometimes the tobacco doesn’t agree with her delicate stomach. Lev sighs and heads toward the bathroom, grabbing some soap, a wet cloth, and a towel for the cleanup. He fucking hates doing this. It’s a sight he doesn’t like to see. Or acknowledge. Lev doesn’t know how to deal with it at all.  
  
She groans, still half-asleep, and lifts her arms, waiting patiently for what comes next. She’s been through this routine enough times to know.  
  
He props her up and helps peel the dirty clothes off her body, then runs the wet cloth and soap across her skin, giving her a quick wipe down for now. He’ll have to run a bath sometime later, after he’s patched himself up first. His mother babbles something in Russian, nonsensical musings about the past. She does that sometimes, when she’s like this. She’ll go off on a tangent about the good ol’ days and talk about all the men she’d met before having him, how her life was more exciting and fulfilling pre-pregnancy. He tries not to take what she says to heart. But deep down Lev knows she’s telling the truth.  
  
“You got into a fight again?” she asks, speech slurred. Her Russian sounds about as coherent as his after five pints at _Ilyich’s_.  
  
Lev shakes his head. “No,” he lies.  
  
His mother frowns. “You’re just like your father. He was a pigheaded idiot, too.” She sighs, disappointed, and then perks up, feigning interest. “Did you bring home what I asked for?”  
  
Ah. The cigarettes.  
  
“No,” he says again, only this time Lev’s telling the truth.  
  
The sharp slap takes him by surprise and only hurts because his cheek’s still swollen from three days ago. Lev reminds himself, again, that she probably doesn’t mean it.  
  
Probably.  
  
More like an afterthought, his mother rubs his swollen cheek and then smiles. Delirious. “Have I ever told you how I met your father?”  
  
Lev nods and tries not to look her in the eye. “Yeah,” he mutters. She has. About a million and one times.  
  
And then she strokes his hair, not breathing a word about the new style. Lev doubts she’s even noticed. “You were always my favorite mistake,” she whispers, her bile-tinged breath churning his stomach.  
  
Lev swallows, thickly, and tries not to cry. “You should get some rest,” he tells her just to make her fucking stop. “I’ll be back with some soup, okay?”  
  
She nods and lies back down, closing her eyes. He skeleton-thin frame disappears in the sheets. He gets up to open a can, or maybe he’ll go the corner store and pick up something she can eat, but Lev stops when he feels her weak fingers wrap around his wrist. “Happy birthday, Lev,” she wheezes, obviously confused.  
  
He doesn’t turn eighteen for another two weeks.  
  
Lev forces a smile anyway and leaves to go cook.  
  
He’s left feeling confused, terrified, and unbearably hurt.  
  
A typical night at the Malikov residence.  
  
Lev shrugs it off as he turns on the stove, telling himself to get over it and move on.  
  
Because he has to.  
  
Because no one else will.  
  
(His eighteenth birthday comes and goes like any other.  
  
Only this time it’s spent alone without anyone else to sing him _Happy Birthday_.  
  
Lev buys his mother’s favorite cigarettes and smokes them quietly on the balcony.  
  
And, this time, he really does cry.)  
  
  
  
**AGE: 15 // CODE VIOLATION: #390**  
  
  
  
“Ow ow ow _ow_!”  
  
“Stop touchin’ it or you’ll fuck it up!”  
  
“I can’t help it. Fuckin’ hurts!”  
  
“Stop. Touching. It.”  
  
Lev flops down onto the grass and tries not to itch the sensitive skin of his earlobe.  
  
Three cans of beer, a glass of whatever the hell Oleg brews in his apartment bathtub, and two shots later, Lev’s beyond fucked up. He’s so fucking drunk he thought getting his ear pierced by one of Oleg’s sketchy as hell friends would be the perfect sendoff to end this night. He’s had alcohol before, sure. A stolen can of beer or two with a few classmates on the rooftop of their school on occasion. But nothing like this. Oleg had pulled Lev aside, given him a very serious, super important speech about becoming a man, and then had offered to pop his hard liquor cherry. And of course Lev had said yes. Why the hell wouldn’t he?  
  
So here he is, watching the world spin from his spot on the ground, trying not to puke or scratch or pass the fuck out. He’s officially a man now. At least according to Oleg. And that, Lev thinks (in his inebriated state) is good enough.  
  
Oleg sits down next to him, practically taking up twice as much space. Lev’s had a small growth spurt somewhere between the ages of ten and fourteen, but it’s not enough. He bet Mikhail he’d be taller than him before they both turned eighteen and so far Lev’s a little doubtful he’ll get there in time. The pretty bastard’s an inch over six foot and Lev’s barely five-seven. Lev glances at Oleg, head sloshing back and forth, and he groans because at the rate he’s growing it’ll take him another ten years to catch up. He shouldn’t feel so depressed over a few measly inches (or feet in Oleg’s case). Lev blames the hooch and those two shots of Jack.  
  
“Maybe next time you’ll get the other ear done, too, huh? Looks a bit silly with just one side pierced.” Oleg nudges Lev’s right arm. “I’m surprised you even went through with it.” He takes a long swig from his beer can. “Thought you were gonna bolt the second you saw his tools.”  
  
Lev snorts, feigning bravado. “Course I didn’t,” he slurs. “M’not a pussy.” He wasn’t scared. Really.  
  
Oleg slaps Lev hard on the back. Lev lurches forward and tries not to throw up. “That’s right! You’re a real man now! Here.” Oleg shoves a freshly cracked can of beer into Lev’s hand. “Drink up.”  
  
He shouldn’t. He really, really, _really_ shouldn’t, but— “‘Kay.”  
  
The alcohol trickles down Lev’s throat and settles uncomfortably in his stomach. Shit. That felt weird.  
  
But he’s not a fucking kid anymore! He can do this. One more drink and he’ll call it quits.  
  
Lev stares into the tall can and gulps. It’s still three quarters of the way full.  
  
Oleg finishes his in less than five chugs and sighs contentedly when he’s done, chucking the can near the vicinity of his truck. They’re parked out by the port, a few miles away from the ships and starfighters, sitting on a nearby hill. The grass is artificial, an unnatural shade of green, as if trying to imitate something it’s clearly not. Lev had mentioned never seeing a lift-off before somewhere between drinks number two and three and Oleg, the fucking sap that he is, decided what they needed after an impromptu piercing session was to come here and do just that.  
  
“I can’t believe you’ve never done this before,” Oleg laughs. “Get drunk on cheap beer and watch a junker go up into space. I used to do it all the fuckin’ time when I was your age. With pretty girls, too.”  
  
Lev audibly groans when Oleg leans over and cheesily winks at him. He fucking gets the hint. Oleg’s been balls-deep in pussy for almost a decade now. He fucking _gets it_. “Yeah, well not all o’ us’ve been lucky ‘nuff to live before this stupid war. We don’t all got time to watch dumb ships and shit.”  
  
The Colterons had first become a problem roughly nine years ago, before anyone from Lev’s generation could remember a life without them. Oleg’s one of the lucky few. He grew up without the Alliance breathing down his neck or the horrors of war dangerously close to his doorstep. No mothers wailing over their missing sons, no starfighters, no fucking recruitment centers every three fucking blocks. Must’ve been nice, Lev muses after another swig. He wouldn’t fucking know, though.  
  
“Well we’re makin’ time now!” Oleg barks. “You’re the one who wanted to come here!”  
  
Lev sputters. “I wasn’t serious!”  
  
His lie couldn’t be more transparent. “Yeah, right. You almost jizzed yourself talking ‘bout how cool space was. I think Boris pierced ya just to shut you the hell up.”  
  
And now he’s turning red from something other than the beer. “Whatever,” Lev grumbles like the sulky teenager that he is.  
  
Oleg laughs amusedly and swings a long arm over Lev’s scrawny shoulders. “Relax, Lyovushka! Kids’re supposed to get excited over these things! Stop tryin’ to rush through life, would ya?”  
  
Lev frowns. “I’m not rushing! And I thought you said I was a man now.”  
  
“You are!”  
  
“You just called me a kid!”  
  
Oleg tenses. “Well…”  
  
“Well what?!”  
  
A pause. “Shut up and drink your beer,” Oleg says after ten seconds of silence. “I think your manliness is wearing off.”  
  
“Oh fuck you!” Lev does as he’s told anyway.  
  
When he’s about halfway through his Baltika, a loud, piercing siren echoes through the air. Flashing red and yellow lights blink rhythmically from a distance, rippling in waves until Lev notices them out of the corner of his eye.  
  
A ship’s about to take off.  
  
“Finally!” Oleg complains. “Thought we’d never catch one.”  
  
Four giant, metal restraints detach from the ship in question—a salvage vessel, most likely privately owned judging by the bright blue paint job and lack of tag. It’s not as big as an Alliance cruiser, but it’s no starfighter either. Just the right size for a few month-long trips to deep space. They probably scavenge for spare parts and rare tech, picking up whatever they can find in the hopes that one day they’ll strike gold and make it big. Lev watches in awe as the quad engines begin to rumble and vibrate, and then glow a faint orange as they heat up in preparation for lift-off.  
  
The timer counts down starting from ten, and Lev briefly wonders, just as the flames ignite, if he'll ever get the chance to sit in a cockpit. If maybe, some day, he'll leave this planet. For good.  
  
A hot summer breeze gusts by, rustling the fake, artificial grass and his shaggy, black hair. The blades bend in half, stems pointed backwards, itching his ankles. Thick smoke rises in uneven puffs from beneath the ship, climbing higher and higher until they dissipate completely into the dark night sky. Above them, the stars shine brightly, their light cutting through the pollution rising from the launch pad.  
  
His heart hammers wildly inside his chest, beating so fast he's afraid it might burst. Lev wobbles on two shaky feet, drunkenly stumbling closer to the port, completely unconscious of the fact that he's actually moving until he inhales exhaust, coughs, and looks back. Oleg's still sitting and smiling a good ten feet behind him. It’s probably the alcohol (and brief dance with infection) that’s got him so delirious and confused. That last beer he chugged just won’t settle at all and Lev’s far more comfortable blaming his childish excitement on either one of those two things than admit it’s the lift-off that’s making him feel so alive.  
  
“And you wanted to leave!” Oleg’s voice booms distantly, a million miles away. He might as well be. Lev thinks he might currently exist on an entirely different plane. “You okay there, Lyovushka? You’re lookin’ a bit pale!”  
  
Lev forgets to speak (and also breathe). So he nods in lieu of a verbal response because he can’t. He just fucking can’t right now. Nothing he’d say, anyway, could ever adequately describe, in vivid fucking detail, just how “okay” he really is, even if the world's still spinning and swirling by too fast.  
  
Suddenly, the voice over the loudspeaker reaches zero.  
  
And the rocket takes off.  
  
The ship's engines explode in a fiery roar, decibels crescendoing into a deafeningly loud explosion. It lifts up from the ground, slowly, bright orange flames engulfing the platform.  
  
Lev covers his ears, but doesn’t dare close his eyes.  
  
Everything rushes by in one big, motion blur.  
  
The giant floodlights flicker off and Lev blinks to adjust as he watches hot flames from the ship illuminate the black sky in a hue of vibrant oranges and reds, an abstract sort of glow mirrored perfectly in his wide, dilated pupils. The ship grows increasingly microscopic with each passing second, a small, blinking dot soon gobbled up by the darkness until it becomes just another star in an endless sea of billions.  
  
And then it's gone, just like that, the only evidence of the ship’s existence left behind in the shape of a thin smoke trail, quickly fading into nothingness.  
  
A large hand claps Lev square on the shoulder. He looks behind him and finds Oleg grinning wider than kid about to say _I told you so_. "So what'd I tell ya, huh? Huh?" He jabs Lev playfully in the ribs. "Pretty fucking cool, right?" For being a twenty-three year old adult, Oleg's pretty damn immature at times.  
  
But he's not exactly wrong. Lev just doesn't want to admit it. How do you explain, in fucking words, that your life feels forever changed? "S'all right," Lev slurs, shrugging. "I guess."  
  
“Says the guy who sprung a boner over a fucking ship.”  
  
He what?!  
  
Lev looks down.  
  
And Oleg cackles. Obnoxiously. “Gotcha!” His long arm swings around Lev’s neck and drags him into a headlock, still laughing.  
  
One wrong step on an ill-placed rock, and in two seconds flat Lev finds himself crash-landing to the ground, ass hitting the stupidly perfect grass with a muffled plop, Oleg tumbling down with him. Oleg doesn’t know his own goddamn strength sometimes. And it doesn’t help that Lev’s about as coordinated as a toddler right now. Thank you, beer. Thank you, masculinity.  
  
“Get offa me!” Lev shoves Oleg’s heavier body away, gasping for air. Christ he weighs a fucking ton.  
  
“Only if you stop lyin’ and tell the truth!” The arm around Lev’s neck constricts tighter than a snake.  
  
Lev desperately smacks Oleg’s bulky muscles because he can’t fucking breathe. “Okay, okay! Fine!” he wheezes. “It was…”  
  
“Huh? Was what, kid?”  
  
“IT WAS COOL!”  
  
The arm leaves and Lev swallows down a giant lungful of air in one big gulp. He collapses to the ground, huffing for breath, arms and legs splayed open as he stares up at the night sky. Oleg continues to laugh beside him, obviously getting a kick out of Lev’s mild asphyxiation.  
  
“Damn straight it was.”  
  
Oleg joins him, his head pillowed comfortably under his arms as they both try to not pass out. That beer’s been working a number on him since before the lift-off and Lev’s pretty damn close to just shutting his eyes and drifting to sleep. But he won’t. Because he’s still gotta prove he’s not a fucking kid. Even if Oleg still sees him that way. Lev grabs his neglected beer can and takes another swig. The alcohol’s warm and stale by now and he cringes at the taste, but doesn’t stop chugging. Oleg smiles proudly and laughs, and it almost reminds Lev of his father. Or, well, what his father might’ve looked like if he hadn’t ditched him. He doesn’t need that asshole, though. Not when he’s got Oleg lying right here beside him.  
  
“Atta boy,” Oleg praises like he’s talking to a puppy. “Now you’re officially a man!”  
  
Lev wipes his mouth with the back of his sticky hand. “You’ve been sayin’ tha’ all fuckin’ night, dumbass.”  
  
“It’s called positive reinforcement, Lyovushka! You have to say what you want over and over again, until you damn well believe it.” Oleg props himself up on one arm and stares down at Lev’s slack face. “Speaking o’ which, now that your balls have dropped—”  
  
“Hey!”  
  
“—it’s about time you figured out what you’re gonna do with yourself.” He’s not laughing anymore, and neither is Lev. “You can’t fuck around for the rest of your life. You’re a man now! And a man’s gotta have a dream! So what’s it gonna be, Lev? Janitor? Bartender? Maybe do dock work, like me?” Oleg flops back down and sighs, and then smirks. “Or maybe join the Alliance, huh? Be their lapdog?”  
  
Lev snarls. “Fuck you! I’d rather eat shit.”  
  
“Then what, kiddo?” Lev bristles at the nickname. “Sorry, sorry. I meant _man_. Old habits.” Oleg waves his hand absently.  
  
Lev’s never really thought about it. Well, he’s never really thought about much other than—  
  
“Space.”  
  
Oleg turns to face Lev. “What?”  
  
Lev swallows. His mouth tastes sour. “Space,” he repeats, a bit louder this time. “I’m goin’ up there. Some day. Can’t fuckin’ stand it down here.”  
  
“Oh yeah? Doing what?” This is the first time Lev’s ever mentioned not living on Mars and Oleg perks up at the sudden confession. “You gonna go find your deadbeat dad and kick his ass? He was a salvager, right?”  
  
It’s meant as a joke, but Lev doesn’t find it funny. He couldn’t care less what his old man’s doing up there. And he has no intention of finding out. Or finding him for that matter. “Yeah,” Lev replies. “But no, ‘m not. Don’t give a shit ‘bout him.” The stars pinwheel above and Lev’s almost certain he’ll puke, but he doesn’t stop talking. “Wanna go cuz I feel like it. Cuz I hate this fuckin’ place. _Christ_ , Mars sucks.” Lev sucks down another gulp of oxygen through his teeth and prays the queasiness goes away soon. “‘M gonna save up enough and book a ticket off o’ here. Scrape the paint off starfighters, haul trash, don’t give a fuck what I’m doin’ up there. ‘M goin’.”  
  
Oleg nods in agreement. “Sounds like a decent plan,” he muses. “But is that your dream? Is that what you really want, Lyovushka? More than anything?”  
  
He’s never bothered to dream before. There’s no point on Mars. Everyone does the same damn thing, day in and day out. Mechanic. Waiter. Fucking garbage pickers. Just different colored paper wrapped around the exact same shit. Lev doesn’t want that. Not when his gut’s telling him something different. He’s never been the type to lose his head in the clouds—mostly because he can’t see them through all the pollution—but instinct, that’s a feeling Lev knows all too well. He’s lived his whole life teetering on the razor’s edge, always just one step away from falling, but his gut’s never let him down. And he doesn’t think it will this time, either.  
  
What’s up there?  
  
What’s waiting for him?  
  
Questions he can’t even begin to answer.  
  
At least not until he finds out for himself.  
  
“Yeah,” Lev says after a while, breathing the word out, letting it sink in completely. “It is.”  
  
Oleg chuckles lowly, like he’s shocked, but not at all surprised that this is the path Lev’s decided to take. “It’s settled then! You better get your ass up there someday for the three o’ us!”  
  
Lev rolls his head left and stares. “Whadda ya mean?”  
  
“You know what happens when you fuck up your record, Lev.” Oleg digs into his pocket and procures a lighter and a pack of cigarettes. Lev could go for a smoke about now, too. “And I’m goin’ nowhere.” He places the lit stick between his lips and inhales. “I did too many stupid things as a kid and now I’m payin’ the price for it. Anna’s almost there and Mikhail…” Oleg laughs and the smoke swirls around his face. “I’ll be shocked if he fuckin’ makes it off o’ this rock. He’s too sly for his own good. But you—” He turns to face Lev now, smile gone and eyes glazed over. “You’ve got a real shot, Lyovushka. So promise me you won’t fuck it up. Like I did.”  
  
Lev doesn’t know for certain whether he will or won’t, but he’s going to fucking try his hardest not to. “I won’t,” he answers, voice firm. He’s never sounded more serious in his entire life. And that frightens him.  
  
Oleg snorts. “Oh come on, Lev! Shout it like you mean it! Try using a little positive reinforcement!”  
  
He wobbles onto his legs and cups two hands around his mouth, not one to back down from a challenge. And if he weren’t so fucking plastered he’d probably feel a little ridiculous doing this. But he doesn’t. He just feels mildly exhilarated and brave. And very, very drunk. “‘M GOIN’ TO SPACE!” he shouts so loud the words echo in the distance and shake his achy ribs. “I PROMISE I’LL FUCKIN’ GET THERE! SO JUST YOU WAIT!” Lev hiccups and falls back down, too tired to stand. Oh God, he feels sick.  
  
Suddenly there’s a loud siren from the port and Lev snaps his head right to see what’s going on.  
  
“Another launch!” Oleg comments. A large yellow salvage vessel is getting ready for lift-off this time. “That’s pretty damn lucky considering they only send one up a night. Maybe it’s a sign, eh?”  
  
Lev just groans and nods his head. He can’t feel his tongue anymore.  
  
Oleg sighs. “Come on, Lyovushka. I think it’s time you went home.”  
  
He can’t get up on his own so Oleg bends down and throws Lev’s arms across his neck and then urges Lev to wrap his legs around his waist, too. Lev complies and moans weakly into Oleg’s shoulder. He can’t remember the last time someone piggybacked him, but Lev’s pretty sure it involved Oleg then, too. Oleg shrugs all of Lev’s weight onto his back, trying his best not to jostle him. The last thing he wants is Lev’s puke all over his shirt. The insufferable heat of summer sticks their skin together, sweat pooling between them and Lev’d feel gross if he wasn’t so wasted. He buries his nose into the back of Oleg’s neck and breathes deep, the familiar scent of Oleg’s aftershave and natural musk tingling his nostrils. Lev feels calmer, in a way, so he inhales again.  
  
“It’s going up,” Oleg murmurs over his shoulder. “Look, Lev.”  
  
His head weighs roughly six million pounds, but Lev lifts it anyway, staring into the sky. The second ship takes off with just as much intensity as the first and Lev gapes as the warmth in his gut spreads all the way down to his toes.  
  
“Make a wish, kiddo. Maybe it’ll come true.”  
  
Lev hopes that whoever’s up there listening to his prayer doesn’t care whether he follows the rules or not.  
  
Because the last thing Lev wants to do right now is close his eyes.  
  
Before he knows it, Oleg’s got him strapped to the passenger seat of the truck, seatbelt clicked in place. Lev barely remembers getting here.  
  
“Try not to throw up in here, okay?” Oleg jokes, but he’s slightly serious, too. “Lemme know if you’re gonna upchuck and I’ll stop. Thumbs up if you understand.”  
  
Lev raises his hand and fiips Oleg the bird.  
  
“Close enough.”  
  
The truck rumbles to a start and Oleg drives them down the beaten, dirt-covered path, artificial grass slowly fading away until there’s nothing but red dirt stretched out in front of them for miles. Mars was never meant to look so green. Oleg’s a pretty good driver for having downed an entire fucking six-pack of beer. He stays on his side of the line and doesn’t swerve (too much). It helps that there’s no one else driving on the road with them at this hour.  
  
Not a single, living soul…except for the cop trailing their tail.  
  
The red and blue lights go off and Oleg curses in Russian, parking on the side. “Act natural,” he tells Lev through gritted teeth.  
  
If by natural Oleg means half-awake and queasy then sure, Lev’s pretty fucking serene right about now.  
  
The cop walks over to Oleg’s window, flashlight shining through the glass. Lev groans when it lands right on his face. The officer knocks twice and Oleg promptly rolls the window down, smiling. “Can I help you, sir?” he says, trying his best to hide the smell of beer on his breath.  
  
“License and registration,” the cop answers, rather suspicious of the whole situation.  
  
The squirming, squiggly eels in Lev’s stomach twist and turn a bit too roughly and in five seconds flat he’s opening the truck door and leaning out over the edge, vomiting onto the ground. Everything’s still spinning and his body is heavy, but at least his stomach’s empty now, and Lev feels so much better.  
  
Oleg grins sheepishly. “Uh, he’s sick,” he explains lamely.  
  
The cop raises a brow. “I’m going to need to see some I.D.” And then flashes the light back on Lev’s pale face. “Especially from him.”  
  
Oleg leans across the console and pats Lev down to find his wallet. “Really, Lyovushka?! Now?!” he hisses.  
  
Lev smirks. “You told me to puke only if we stopped,” he slurs. He shouldn’t be laughing at a time like this, not when they’re about ten seconds away from landing another charge, but Lev giggles drunkenly anyway, because the truth of the matter is that he’s still a child.  
  
Oleg groans, but can’t help joining in. “I take back what I said, you’re still a fucking kid,” he chastises, but there’s no bite behind his words, just a stifled laugh that only annoys the officer further.  
  
Lev nods. He really fucking is.  
  
But that’s okay.  
  
Because, deep down, Oleg’s one, too.  
  
  
  
**AGE: 12 // CODE VIOLATION: #308**  
  
  
  
School lets out at 3:15pm sharp.  
  
Lev leaves much sooner than that.  
  
He ditches History in favor of wandering the streets, by himself.  
  
It’s all bullshit anyway. Who the fuck wants to learn about every super awesome great thing the Alliance has ever done while stationed on Mars? Not him. Which is why Lev’s currently taking a train downtown, where the fun, grown-up things happen. Food stalls, casinos, whore houses, you name it. The red light district’s got it all. He gets a few looks when he visits sometimes. Mostly from adults who think they know better (because they’ve got room to judge, _pfft_ ), but they don’t ever say a word. At least to his face. They’d be hypocrites if they did, because everyone comes down here sooner or later and Lev’s never had very much patience.  
  
Lev slings his backpack over his shoulder and holds onto the strap tightly. There’s a lot of pickpockets on the subway. He should know. He’s a pretty damn good one.  
  
Some poor sucker holding onto the railing with both hands doesn’t realize his coat pocket’s exposed. Usually Lev has to be crafty about it, find a good opening before diving right in, but this guy’s begging to get robbed. So Lev does what any other twelve year old delinquent might in his situation: he steps closer, reaches forward, and quietly pilfers what’s inside, which is a pack of smokes and cheap corner store matches. He’s doing the guy a favor, really. Maybe he’ll learn to fucking value his valuables. Lev shoves the cigarettes into his backpack and smirks. That was a lot easier than he thought it would be.  
  
The conductor announces their arrival and Lev steps off with confidence and a sharp pang in his gut.  
  
He hasn’t eaten since lunch.  
  
Lev makes his way south, where the food stalls are. He can probably steal a few meat skewers or pies when the old women aren’t looking. They rarely notice him, anyway.  
  
At night this place lights up brighter than a goddamn Christmas tree. Not that he’d know what that looks likes or anything. No one here celebrates all that much. But from what Lev thinks he knows, the colony’s red light district shines just as bright. All neon and technicolor when the sun goes down, blinking signs and billboards, the only shred of color on this goddamn planet.  
  
A light, spring shower softly pitter-patters to the ground. Lev throws his hood up and keeps walking. He’s used to it by now. The people around him either scramble for cover or grin and bear it, knowing full well that on Mars, when it rains, it always pours.  
  
Hot steam wafts through the air and the thick aroma of spices and beef rumbles Lev’s stomach. _Christ_ he’s fucking starving.  
  
The slop they serve at school can hardly be considered food.  
  
So he takes full advantage of the situation and makes himself scarce, ducking between the customers lined up for food when no one’s looking, sneaking a hand out to grab whatever tidbits he can.  
  
Lev comes away with one meat skewer and a bag of mini dumplings, still piping hot in his palms. He hides in an alley, out of sight, and quickly scarfs down the food, savoring the taste because he knows he’ll never eat something this tasty at his own fucking house. The grilled beef practically melts in his mouth and Lev almost cries because it’s so damn delicious. Raising or importing livestock on Mars is expensive, and he figures the skewer might’ve cost him around fifteen credits had he actually paid for it. Lev licks his greasy lips and tosses the wooden stick somewhere behind him, and then starts on the dumplings next, which have been stuffed with an assortment of fresh vegetables that might’ve cost just as much.  
  
Any normal person might be stuffed after that, but Lev’s a growing boy and his metabolism demands more.  
  
A granny by the corner is selling freshly baked meat pies and Lev practically drools at the sight. The crust shines with sweet glaze and steams enticingly. He wants one. Really fucking badly.  
  
Lev hurries over just as a group of dockworkers rush toward the stall. He sneaks to the side and carefully—oh so carefully—reaches for the closest pie, fingers inches away from what he wants the most. He manages to grab one and smiles at his luck.  
  
Until a hand suddenly snatches his wrist and drags him behind the booth.  
  
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?!” barks the old woman as she stares down at his theft, caught red-handed. Her face trembles with rage, but she’s no more frightening than a de-clawed cat.  
  
Lev doesn’t answer. He just shoves the pie down his throat before the old bitch has enough sense to take it back from him.  
  
“You little thief!”  
  
She grabs her cane and promptly whacks him across the back, screaming in a mixture of Russian and English, bruising Lev’s scrawny body all over. He doesn’t stop chewing though, even if he’s getting his ass kicked by some old geezer. By the time he’s swallowed his last bite, Lev’s black and blue and bloody all over, but he doesn’t regret it. Not one bit. His mother doesn’t cook and at least Lev won’t have to by the time he gets home.  
  
He dashes left and wipes the crumbs and caked blood off his face. He can still hear the old woman’s shrill voice in the distance, but she’s too feeble to catch up with him.  
  
Lev stops at a corner store to catch his breath.  
  
He touches his left cheek and hisses. Christ, she got him pretty fucking good.  
  
The old, crusty mirror in the corner reflects a rather humiliating image. Lev’s covered in welts and bleeding from a small cut that mars his tanned skin. It was worth it, though. That meat pie looked as good as it tasted.  
  
Lev steals a small package of bandages and hurries out before the owner notices.  
  
He peels off the paper and slaps one across his cheek, stemming the bleeding. This wasn’t his first beating and Lev doubts it’ll be his last. There’s always someone, somewhere with something worth stealing. And if that means getting his ass kicked well, then, Lev’ll deal with it. Because this world belongs to him.  
  
After another hour spent roaming around, doing nothing in particular—ogling prostitutes from across the street, watching men gamble and lose their entire life’s savings at the slots, cheering on a fight that broke out at a bar—Lev heads back to the station. He’s ready to go home. His mother might be worried. Maybe. If she’s sober enough to care.  
  
It takes about forty minutes by train to get back to his neighborhood. And this time the subway is filled with students his age or older, recently let out of school, where he should’ve been this whole time. A group of girls turn up their noses when they smell Lev walk by. He reeks of cigarettes and alcohol and everything a twelve year old shouldn’t. Lev flips them off and smiles when they gasp indignantly. He doesn’t fucking care.  
  
Ten blocks and six flights of stairs later, Lev’s in front of his apartment door, keys jangling noisily as he pushes it open as quietly as he can.  
  
No one’s in the living room.  
  
There are, however, a few empty beer cans on their small dining table, along with a half-empty handle of vodka.  
  
She’s been drinking.  
  
Which means she probably missed work.  
  
Again.  
  
Lev dumps his backpack onto the floor and heads toward his mother’s bedroom. If she’s not out here, she’s most definitely in there.  
  
He creaks open the door and finds her sitting in the dark, blinds drawn closed, the TV on. She’s watching the news while drinking from a tall glass, her eyes glazed over. His mother’s been at it for a while, it seems, and Lev wonders how plastered she is by now. A part of him doesn’t want to find out.  
  
“Hey mom,” he announces, voice soft.  
  
It takes her a while to look left and acknowledge her son’s existence. “Lev,” she croaks with a smile. At least she’s happy. For now. “You’re home. How was school?” Her words slur together, but he understands her all the same.  
  
Lev shrugs. “Fine,” he lies. It never is, but he tells her this every day anyway. “Took a test today. I think I did okay.” He probably bombed the whole thing.  
  
Her eyes light up. “Oh, that’s good! Great job, honey! I’m glad you’re doing well.” He’s not. He’s pretty much flunking, but she doesn’t need to know that right now. His mother’s in a good mood for once and Lev wants to keep it that way even though he knows, at some point, she’ll bounce right back to sour. It’s inevitable when she drinks—which is too damn often. “By the way…” Oh, here it comes. “Did you buy me the cigarettes I like down by the corner store on the way home? The ones I asked for?” She never fucking did. At least not today. Sometimes she confuses when and where things happen.  
  
Lev fingers the pack of smokes in his pocket and contemplates handing them over. They’re not the brand she likes though, so he doubts she’ll even take ‘em. “No,” he says after a while, staring down at his feet. He hates how she looks when her face twists with anger.  
  
Three seconds later, her glass shatters dangerously close to his head. Lev jumps in shock and tries very hard not to scream. She threw the fucking thing at the door, probably aiming for his head. He stands completely still, afraid to move or breathe or do anything other than exist, hands shaking inside his pockets.  
  
“Is it that fucking hard to just do what I ask?!” she screams. Technically he shouldn’t even be getting her the smokes. He’s not old enough to buy them. So yeah, it really is fucking hard. “Jesus, Lev, you’re useless sometimes! Useless! All you do is sit around and take up space! You don’t do shit!” Except for all the times he cleans up after her, cooks, and washes the dishes because she’s too smashed to do it herself. His mother’s selectively forgetful. “You were just another stupid mistake!”  
  
He knows that. He fucking knows he’s an accident. She never meant to get pregnant and have him, that was never part of the plan. And for some selfish reason she didn’t get an abortion or put him up for adoption, either. So here he is, standing in his mother’s bedroom doorway for the nth time in his life, subjecting himself to the same old bullshit she pulls every other night, hoping that one of these days she’ll either choke on her own fucking vomit or breakdown, sobbing, and admit that she’s never meant a single drunken word she’s said.  
  
Lev’s not holding out hope for the second any time soon.  
  
“I shouldn’t have gotten drunk that night,” she muses to herself, turning to face the TV now, more comfortable confessing all of this to the broadcasters than her actual son. Lev doubts she remembers that he’s still in the room. “Shouldn’t have done all those fucking shots and then fucked your father. Shouldn’t have kept going when the fucking condom broke, either.” And now she sounds so painfully sad, like her entire life has amounted to absolutely nothing, Lev at the center of it all, the maelstrom that continues to pull her further and further away from her dreams, so completely and utterly shattered by now, irreparable and broken. “Christ, I’m an idiot. No wonder he fucking left.”  
  
Lev bites his tongue to keep from shouting back. Any time he’s tried to, it’s never ended well. So he’s learned to hold in his anger and tune her out, write off what she says as the drunken ramblings of a narcissist. But sometimes her words cut deeper than any knife could.  
  
And tonight he’s just too fucking tired to deal with her shit.  
  
She sputters as he turns on his heel and leaves. “Get back here, Lev! I’m not finished with you yet!”  
  
He doesn’t care if she isn’t. He’s not listening to this. Not again. Not tonight. “Fuck off!” he shoots over his shoulder.  
  
Lev slams his bedroom door closed behind him and then locks it.  
  
Predictably, his mother chases after him. She bangs her fists against the door desperately. “Lev! Open this door right now! You ungrateful little shit, open the fucking door!”  
  
It’s so much easier to ignore her when there’s a thick slab of wood separating him from his mother’s verbal abuse. At least she doesn’t hit him.  
  
After five minutes of non-stop shouting and pounding, she leaves, giving up when after realizing that Lev doesn’t want to be her metaphorical punching bag. Not tonight.  
  
Lev sighs in relief and slumps against the wall, exhausted. He digs his hands in his jacket and then pauses when he feels the soft, cardboard box still buried deep inside his right pocket. The cigarettes from earlier. The ones he pickpocketed from that man. He still has them. And that excites him more than it should.  
  
He quickly opens the window and climbs outside onto the fire escape, and then gently closes it in a way that’ll let him back inside later.  
  
Cigarettes, huh? Lots of people on Mars smoke ‘em. Lev doesn’t get what the big deal is, but he supposes it’d be worth a try at least. He’s never smoked before in his entire life, which is a bit strange considering a good number of students at school do, usually the older kids, on the rooftops before and after lunch. But Lev’s never once considered asking for a light. Until now, that is. The nicotine’s supposed to make you feel good or some shit, help you relax. He could use that right about now.  
  
Lev pulls out one stick and places it between his lips. Lighting up’s the easy part. He’s done that about a million times for his mother when she was too drunk to do it herself. Lev strikes the match with practiced ease, orange flame glowing dimly under the overcast sky. His hands shake, nervous (and just why the fuck is he—this isn’t rocket science?!), as Lev brings the flame closer to the end of his cigarette. It catches and begins to burn. Lev dumps the match to the ground down below and then pinches the stick between his two fingers.  
  
He inhales, deeply.  
  
And then violently coughs.  
  
Oh, _fuck_.  
  
That didn’t—  
  
He’s—  
  
Lev leans over the railing and vomits, contents of today’s trip splattering onto the street from six flights up. He groans feebly, still very nauseous, and wipes his mouth clean with the back of one hand. Christ that tasted horrible and he can’t stop hacking. But he won’t let the cigarette win. No fucking way. Lev places the still burning stick between his lips again and takes a smaller drag this time.  
  
It’s manageable in small doses, even though the tobacco doesn’t taste all that great.  
  
The nicotine, though, that’s what gets him hooked.  
  
Lev dives back in with renewed enthusiasm and finishes the cigarette without puking. He stubs out the butt and flicks it to the ground, already reaching for a second.  
  
Just as he’s striking a second match, his mother comes back, knocking with apologetic little raps. Lev rolls his eyes.  
  
“Lev,” she calls sweetly, voice shaking. She’s still strung out as fuck. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. Any of it.”  
  
He pauses mid-light. So she’s switching to that tactic now, huh? Playing the drunk card. Lev doesn’t buy her act. He never has. It’s all a ploy, manipulation. When he was seven, her apologies sounded far more genuine. And then Lev grew up and learned the hard way just how full of lies they really were. He turns away from the window and smokes, hoping she’ll leave eventually.  
  
Another loud bang followed by more screeching and yeah, he was right. What a fucking surprise.  
  
“You’re such a shithead, Lev! Just like your father!” she announces one last time before leaving (for good he hopes).  
  
Lev smirks. He really shouldn’t be getting off on her frustration, but there’s little else to entertain him. Besides the pack of smokes sitting precariously on the railing. Lev huffs down the second cigarette out of spite, just so his mother can’t smoke a single one.  
  
“Hey, kid! What the hell are you doing?!”  
  
The shout doesn’t come from his bedroom or anywhere near his apartment. It originates down below, on the ground. Lev leans over the railing and stares at the girl staring back at him.  
  
“What?” he croaks back. The smoke inadvertently deepens his pre-pubescent voice.  
  
The girl (she looks older, maybe by three years or so; he can’t really tell from this high up) cups her hands around her mouth and says, “I said what the hell are you doing?! Shouldn’t you be sucking pacifiers? Cigarettes are for grown-ups!”  
  
Lev frowns and flips her off. “Fuck you! I’m old enough to smoke!”  
  
The girl cocks her head, black hair falling into her face, her hands resting on her narrow hips. “Sure you are, kid! And I’m the fucking Queen of Mars!” More like a spoiled princess judging by her attitude. Who the hell does this girl think she is?! “Why the fuck do you wanna smoke anyway? Shouldn’t you be playing with friends or something? Or, I dunno, do some homework?”  
  
“Don’t got any,” he barks back.  
  
“Any what?”  
  
“Friends. Or homework.” That’s a lie. He definitely has homework, but Lev doesn’t do any of it.  
  
And this time she pouts. She actually fucking pouts, like the girl’s actually upset he’s antisocial and stupid. Lev can’t help but crack a smile. “Well, do you want some?”  
  
“Some what?” The third cigarette between his fingers remains forgotten.  
  
“Some friends, moron! Unless you’re talking about homework! I guess I could give you my algebra worksheet if that’s what you’re askin’ for!”  
  
“Fuck you!” Lev laughs. Shit, he hasn’t done that in a while.  
  
Her smile widens. “So you comin’ down here or what?”  
  
A loud crash echoes from Lev’s kitchen. His mother probably broke a bottle of booze or something and she’ll need him to clean it up. But Lev doesn’t feel like doing that right now. So, yeah, he’s coming down. Fuck his mother. Fuck the cigarettes. He pockets the pack and quickly climbs down the ladder, mindful of the slippery, wet rails.  
  
When Lev’s feet hit the ground, she’s there waiting for him, hands still rooted firmly on her hips. “What’s your name, kid?”  
  
“Lev,” he answers. “Lev Malikov.”  
  
“Lev Malikov,” she repeats, letting the name rack her brain, tossing and turning it on the tip of her tongue. “Lev…Mal…you a bad kid, Lev?”  
  
He shrugs indifferently. “Sometimes. Why? You a saint or something?”  
  
The girl snorts. “Nah,” she replies, shaking her head. “Not at all. It’s just funny, that’s all.”  
  
“What is?”  
  
“Your name.”  
  
“My name?”  
  
“Yeah. Your name. How it kind of fits you so perfectly.”  
  
Before he has the chance to pull away, the girl’s striding toward him in three steps, her hand outstretched. She ruffles the back of his hair until it’s a tangled, poofy mess, strands standing every which way. Lev growls lowly and shoves her hand off of him. “What the hell was that for?!” he snaps.  
  
She giggles amusedly and Lev would hate the sound if it weren’t so fucking contagious. “You really are a Lev aren’t you?”  
  
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” Lev flattens his black hair down. He really should get it cut.  
  
“Leo. Lion. Apex predator of the jungle. That’s you.” She curls her fingertips down and playfully roars, her canines on display. “You know, a giant yellow cat from Earth. King of the Savanna. Don’t they teach you anything in school these days?”  
  
Lev stares blankly. A what? “The fuck are you talking about?” This girl’s off her fucking rocker. Lev regrets coming down here after all. But he has to admit that it beats sulking on the fire escape.  
  
“I guess they don’t, huh? Well, I’ll have to teach you all the stuff you’ve been missin’ out on, won’t I?” Her arm rests comfortably across his shorter shoulders, slipping into place like a lost puzzle piece, the jagged edges aligning perfectly. “The name’s Anna by the way. Nice to meet you, Lev. You know, you’re not half bad for a pint-sized brat.”  
  
“And you’re an even crazier bitch than I thought you’d be,” Lev shoots back.  
  
Anna feigns offense, face scrunching up and brows creasing, but that glint in her eye doesn’t fade. “Ooh. Ouch. Kitty’s got claws,” she laughs, voice clear and loud and so full of life. Anna shines brighter than the sun, so blinding and brilliant, and Lev never wants to leave her side. “Not bad, not bad. But what I really wanna know—” her free hand curls delicately around his jaw, arm slipping loose and falling limply to her side, her two fingers gripping tighter than vice to hold his head in place “—is if this pussycat’s got teeth.”  
  
And now she’s smiling, feral and wild, an unrestrained grin compared to the ones before. Anna’s challenging him, silently asking if he’s all talk and no show. Natural selection at its finest. Are you weak or are you strong? And, more importantly, above anything else, can you learn to keep up? Lev never was one to back down from a challenge. He unconsciously licks the front of his teeth and smirks, showing her a mirror image of what’s right in front of him, the kind of answer she’s been looking for.  
  
Anna laughs and pats the top of his head. “I think I’ll keep you around, kid. You’re pretty damn cute. Besides, someone’s gotta keep you out of trouble.”  
  
Someone like Anna’s going to get him in tons of it, Lev can just tell. But that’s only half the reason why Lev decides to stay.  
  
“Yo, Anna!”  
  
A second voice, gravely and rough like the red Martian dirt, echoes behind them. Lev turns his head and stares at the two boys walking towards them. One is tall, muscular, and tanned all over. The other is pale, scrawny, and disgustingly handsome. Friends of Anna’s, Lev assumes, with him being the most recent addition to her collection.  
  
“You pickin’ up strays again?” chuckles the older boy, arms folded tightly across his chest. He looks seventeen or eighteen, too mature for the likes of them.  
  
Anna smirks. “That’s how I met you two losers,” she says. “This is Lev, by the way. I told him he could hang out with us for a bit.”  
  
The paler boy frowns, unconvinced. “He’s a bit young, don’t you think? I don’t want to be responsible for a kid, Anna.”  
  
Lev opens his mouth to say something, but Anna beats him to it. “Oh come off it, Mikhail. We weren’t that much older when we first started dicking around with Oleg.”  
  
Oleg, the muscular one, grins. “It felt more like babysitting, but if that’s what you wanna call it—ow!” Mikhail jabs Oleg hard in the arm.  
  
Mikhail sighs in defeat and stares down at Lev, as if mentally assessing every inch of his existence, the good, the bad, and everything in between. “Fine,” he grumbles. “He can tag along, I guess.” For being no more than fifteen, Mikhail carries himself like he’s much, much older. “Just don’t slow us down, all right? And don’t expect us to hold your fucking hand.”  
  
Oleg beams and ruffles Lev’s already messy hair. “Go easy on him, Mikhail. He’s just a kid. Like you.”  
  
“I’m not a kid!” Mikhail protests in the most childish manner possible, foot slamming down and upper lip turned.  
  
Laughing, Anna pats Mikhail’s back affectionately, calming him down. “Well if there’s something you two have in common it’s that you both can’t smoke for shit. So maybe we should fix that before I die from embarrassment. It’s seriously nauseating. Right?” She jabs Lev playfully in the arm, acutely aware of the mess still drying a few feet behind them. But Oleg and Mikhail don’t need to know that little fact.  
  
“His balls haven’t even dropped and you’re giving him a cigarette,” Mikhail moans, arms resting behind his head. “Really, Anna?”  
  
“Look, he’s gonna do it anyway so he might as well learn how to do it right,” she counters. “Besides, weren’t you his age when you first started?”  
  
Mikhail shrugs noncommittally. Oleg wrangles him in for an impromptu headlock. “My place then?” he announces, as if the matter’s settled. Oleg pointedly ignores the way Mikhail squirms like a freshly dug-up earthworm in protest.  
  
Anna nods. “Sure! Just hide the hooch, okay? I don’t think Lev’s ready for that yet.”  
  
“Noted.”  
  
And as he watches them laugh and tease all the way down the street, Lev knows that this is the other half, the other all-important reason why he’ll stay. Because Anna, Mikhail, and Oleg could become his very first, real—  
  
“Lev, you comin’ or what?” Anna calls when he hasn’t moved an inch, her invitation laid bare, just waiting to be taken.  
  
Lev looks behind him, at his half-closed window, at his dim bedroom light, and he thinks of his mother, how she’s probably pouring herself another drink and getting smashed. How she’ll probably throw up on the carpet and make a mess in the kitchen, or set something on fire if worse comes to worst. Maybe he won’t even have an apartment to come home to five hours from now. But none of that seems to matter at this moment in time.  
  
The only things that do are already fifteen feet in front of him and Lev races to catch up, determined to not get left behind. “Yeah!” he shouts. “I’m catching up!”  
  
—friends.  
  
  
  
**AGE: 22 // CODE VIOLATION: NONE; RECORD CONFIDENTIAL**  
  
  
  
“Open your eyes, son, or you’re gonna miss the whole thing.”  
  
That’s kind of the point, but Lev does as he’s told anyway. He’ll have to get used to that leash sooner or later.  
  
Bering sits next to him on the shuttle, hands comfortably resting on the tops of his thighs, eyes glazed over as he leans against the headrest. He’s probably been in one of these things thousands of times by now, completely used to the shaky rumble of lift-off. He wouldn’t look so fucking calm if he weren’t. Lev, by comparison, is a shaking, jittery mess, his leg bouncing nervously against the floor. If he gripped the restraints any tighter he’d probably tear right through them. This is his first time leaving Mars, leaving _home_. He always thought he’d be happier about it, so fucking ecstatic to get off this goddamn rock and just go. But the only thing Lev feels right now is an overwhelming sense of sadness mingled with profound, gut-wrenching guilt.  
  
At least he kept his promise.  
  
At least he’s going up.  
  
To space.  
  
“First time on a shuttle?” Bering asks when Lev’s knee-rattling gets a bit too intense.  
  
Lev nods and then swallows, staring out the window. They’re still on the ground. “Yeah. I’ve never been in one before.”  
  
Bering smirks. “Then you’ll want to take a good, long look, son. It’s one of those moments you’ll remember for the rest of your life.”  
  
Not as Lev Malikov, but as Cain, a Federated Alliance fighter. He’ll be assigned a navigator (probably some pretty boy from Earth), work on Project Thebes in complete and utter solitude, and answer to Bering’s every beck and call. Not the life he ever pictured for himself, but that dream died exactly one year ago.  
  
He’s had all this time to let those wounds heal, to cover up and bury deep, deep down, but some scars stay with you, no matter how hard you scratch and itch and pick and tear. So he’ll carry that weight with him, right up until the bitter end; it’s the least he can do to show that he still cares.  
  
_Cared_.  
  
And as the shuttle rumbles to a start, engines ablaze, their ship slowly ascending towards the dull, gray sky, he looks down and watches the world shrink beneath him, so infinitesimally small, until the whole planet fits in the palm of his hand. Mars glows a soft, vibrant red in an endless sea of black, marble-sized and microscopic, and, strangely, beautiful.  
  
“Welcome to space, Cain,” Bering congratulates just as the man over the intercom announces their smooth entry.  
  
Cain lets go of the restraints and exhales a shaky, dry laugh.  
  
His new name suits him better than his old one ever did.  
  


**Author's Note:**

> oh boy. so, okay, yeah. where do i even begin with this. i wrote this as a sort of accompaniment piece to [your atlas complex is showing](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4939333), cain's version obviously, which is decidedly not filled with sunshines and rainbows and romantic notions of adventure or purpose. this fic is mostly based off of chapter four in starfighter, when cain has his flashback to mars and sees those three people sitting at the table waiting for him, like they're old friends of his. so i took that idea and ran with it and here we are. i wanted to present a grittier, darker side than what abel or any earth-born character would be familiar with, and so i decided to kind of flip the alliance a little and make them "the big bad" instead of the colterons (or, well, interpersonal relationships on the ship if we're being honest here). so yeah, there's that. all of the code violations are based on actual state laws or police codes. they are as follows;
> 
> 487 = grand theft, 602 = trespassing, 12031 = illegal firearms, 311 = indecent exposure, 148 = resisting arrest, 390 = underage drinking, 308 = minor in possession of tobacco
> 
> sorry if you're a deimos fan, but considering cain doesn't see him at the bar, i didn't include him in cain's childhood or past because i figured that if he were a part of it, he'd have been included in the flashback. in my mind i always envisioned deimos as someone cain meets later, maybe when he's first starting out as a fighter, and he just pockets him because deimos is something familiar that he can cling to. okay sorry that's a tangent.
> 
> cain's name i chose because i liked the imagery associated with it. i think hamlet has mentioned that cain is most like a cat and what better cat to be than a lion, haha. so that's what i went with. 
> 
> um, this was obviously inspired by a lot of things. namely:
> 
> -[this toonami advert](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfadJj4d5K4)  
> -yoko kanno's soundtracks, specifically: [the real folk blues](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nftxDrStny8), [call me call me](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPbBhvv6GI8), [no one's home](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSdo4idlRGI), [blue](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03qBqP2I4p8), and [nc17](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Dj1QYHir4A)  
> -and late 90's sci-fi anime in general  
> -title was taken from [this glitch mob song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kON_KRmFRKk)  
> -subt-title taken from [this working for a nuclear free city song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CeabSQmQck)
> 
> that's it. that's all i have to say.
> 
> re-post from my [dreamwidth](https://sop.dreamwidth.org/3532.html#cutid1).
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/boysthighs) // [tumblr](http://boy-thighs.tumblr.com/)


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